Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRed Bull Racing

Horner found Renault's false promises 'frustrating'

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Christian Horner says part of the difficulty in the relationship between Red Bull and Renault was created by false promises from the engine manufacturer.

Red Bull looked to leave Renault in 2015 as it went in search of power unit supply deals from Mercedes, Ferrari and Honda before having to compromise by branding the 2016 Renault engine as Tag Heuer. While praising the job done by Mercedes and saying he was able to stomach the performance gap in 2014, Horner points to the missed objectives last season as the breaking point in the Renault relationship.

"Mercedes has done a remarkable job with its powertrain, but in 2014, the days when they made mistakes, we were there to enjoy it," Horner told Motorsport-Total.com.

"Ferrari and Renault were close enough to the level of performance that year. The problem we encountered in 2015 is that after our three victories in 2014, Renault had made us a promise that it would catch up with Mercedes. The expectations were very high on the side of Renault.

"When you're an ambitious team like ours, we want to win, and if victory does not come, it's frustrating. So it was frustrating because we had no control over the engine.

"We had a few problems on the car at the beginning of the year, but we could fix it. We had a good chassis. You could see that in the middle sector of Spa, or in Hungary, Singapore and Monaco. Wherever the engine power does not play such a big role."

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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.