Red Bull: Burning bridges everywhere

Threats from Red Bull have been taken with a pinch of salt over the past two years, and perhaps still were until only a few weeks ago. However, one look at the destruction behind the team confirms a very real chance of Red Bull and Toro Rosso not being on the grid next year.

Fresh from four consecutive championship doubles, Red Bull quickly turned on engine partner Renault in 2014 when the going got tough. At the time, both sides could write it off as a blip, one poor season from which the partnership would bounce back this year. Except, that didn’t happen.

With the relationship between Red Bull and Renault already close to breaking point, the strides made by Ferrari - with a little help from Mercedes - over the winter caused the toys to firmly disappear out of the pram.

It is somewhat understandable. A year ago, Red Bull boss Christian Horner had to fend off questions predicting the beginning of the end for his team as Sebastian Vettel headed for Ferrari and Adrian Newey shifted his focus away from F1, disillusioned with the sport. In Daniel Ricciardo the team had another race winner from its young driver program, and it still knew how to make a quick car.

This season has shown the RB11 to be another very good chassis, as the performances in Monaco, Hungary and Singapore clearly displayed. But it seemed Vettel and Newey knew better; the blip of 2014 was more the start of a slide from which Red Bull might not recover.

And so, to the team’s main problem: its attitude. Unhappy at Renault’s failings, it burned bridge number two by ending its partnership a year early as the French manufacturer continued its pursuit of a Lotus takeover.

In reality, the first bridge was ablaze long before; a Mercedes deal was never likely when you look at the history between the two teams. When Mercedes illegally used a current car to test Pirelli tyres at Barcelona in 2013, Red Bull pushed hard for severe sanctions with Horner and chief engineer Paul Monaghan surprise observers at the tribunal.

Fast forward 12 months and the roles were reversed, with Red Bull appealing Daniel Ricciardo’s exclusion from the 2014 Australian Grand Prix over fuel flow rates. Mercedes, fuelled by Red Bull’s behaviour regarding the tyre test, pushed for an increased punishment, claiming the team had made “a flagrant breach” of the regulations. Mercedes actually wanted Red Bull banned for three races in a clear sign of relations between the two. Unsurprisingly, Mercedes turned down the opportunity to give Red Bull engines next year.

So the final realistic bridge to a new power unit deal was Ferrari, the team’s former engine supplier. With talks ongoing - but not going completely the way Red Bull would have liked - advisor Helmut Marko felt it wise to criticise Ferrari’s stance.

“They are playing games with us, but we don't want to play along,” Marko told Auto Motor und Sport. "Our consideration to pull out is fuelled more and more. It is a cheek to offer us 2015-spec engines when, at the same time, Sauber and Haas F1 are going to get 2016-spec engines.”

Granted, that is cheeky, but Ferrari holds the cards because it does not have to supply any more teams, and taking on both Red Bull and Toro Rosso would be no small task.

With Red Bull almost appearing intent on sabotaging its own chances of remaining in the sport - despite Bernie Ecclestone admitting he is “doing everything I can” to retain the energy drink manufacturer - the approach has unsurprisingly led to a number of independent teams saying: ‘Told you so’.

"All we are doing at the moment is showcasing what is terribly wrong with the bilateral agreements that we’ve been complaining about for some time"

Red Bull committed to Formula One until 2020, but Horner said in Japan: "Circumstances change and circumstances now are very different, obviously, to when we entered into that agreement".

Amid a complaint to the EU regarding F1’s governance and revenue structure, Force India’s Bob Fernley sees a way out for Red Bull, but says the situation highlights how flawed the bilateral agreements which favour the bigger teams are.

“I think there has been mistakes made by both Renault and Red Bull and they should sit down together and try to work it out,” Fernley told F1i. “The Renault engine is capable of moving on to a much better performance unit a la Ferrari. Maybe a bit of help from Mercedes as Ferrari got or something and they could be there. So I think that was perhaps an error on their part.

“But I think for me all we are doing at the moment is showcasing what is terribly wrong with the bilateral agreements that we’ve been complaining about for some time. That is that it’s rewarding teams at the front that at a whim could leave, and it’s hurting teams in the middle - the independent teams such as Lotus - who need the funding to survive.

“I just think we need the independent teams as the backbone of Formula One and hopefully somewhere down the line something will happen that rectifies that.”

Fernley is not alone, with Monisha Kaltenborn - whose Sauber team also lodged the complaint with the EU - showing little sympathy for Red Bull’s plight.

“It has not been easy in the past to find consensus, even amongst independent teams,” Kaltenborn told F1i. “There are a few who really stick together, but it was a bit different in the past when it comes to money. If you look at the common negotiations which led to the 2009 Concorde Agreement, what kept us together was the financial aspect. When that was the sorted out for the next Concorde - which was the key to it - there was for the bigger teams no need to group up together with the smaller ones.

“When it comes to Bernie he has helped each and every team in here so we have all received help from him, but I cannot believe that he thinks Formula One without smaller independent teams would still be the same Formula One to generate the same amount of money.”

So would F1 be a poorer place without Red Bull?

“In my view we had a worse crisis in 2008-10 when car manufacturers left, and we survived that…”

Pragmatically, should Red Bull leave it would be a huge loss to Formula One. The team has achieved huge success, promotes F1 globally and has provided a platform for some of the most exciting talents in motorsport. But the problem Red Bull is facing is one almost entirely of its own making which others should not be expected to resolve at all costs.

F1i technical expert Nicolas Carpentiers takes us through exclusive pictures of Renault's power unit

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