Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRenault

Renault in no rush to extend Red Bull contracts

Renault is in no rush to extend its contracts with Red Bull and Toro Rosso beyond the end of next season, according to Cyril Abiteboul.

The French engine manufacturer's relationship with Red Bull has been strained at times since the introduction of the new power unit regulations at the start of 2014. With Red Bull struggling from a performance and reliability point of view so far this season, there have been hints that Renault could opt to quit F1 or takeover another team itself.

With a potential change in regulations in 2017, Abiteboul says the focus is to improve the current engine to show the teams it supplies it can still be successful.

"We have contracts that run with [Red Bull and Toro Rosso] until the end of 2016," Abiteboul said. "I guess the deadline is 31 December 2016! No, joke apart. We have no deadline, no rush.

"I think right now the deadline and the big target is to get the engine under control, both from reliability and performance perspectives. Once this is done we can secure some longer-term stuff. And I’m sure right now this is a concern for our customer – will we be capable of dealing with the regulation, with dealing with the trouble that we have right now?

"So, I think this is a concern for them, this is a concern also for us, so this is what we have to address in priority before thinking about anything else."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.