F1: When Will Renault Decide their Future?

Nov 1, 2014; Austin, TX, USA; Toro Rosso driver Jean-Eric Vergne (25) of France during qualifying for the 2014 U.S. Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

For many months, we have seen since the season opener how Red Bull Racing have criticized their engine supplier, Renault. The big expressions have come from the Austrian duo of President Didi Mateschitz and his side kick, Helmut Marko. The two have been going back and forth blaming nobody but their supplier, and to make things worse, design ace Adrian Newey and Team Manager Christian Horner have jumped into the response unit.

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With the teams still under one more year on their contract, the big rumor that has not gone away has been the opportunity to have Renault return to becoming a works team and purchase the ever so broke Lotus F1 team, a squad which under their finance company, Genii of Luxembourg, brought them in 2011, are now switching gears and it might go the other way in return. However, Renault, wish to honor their contract and have still one more season with both Red Bull and their JV team, Toro Rosso. Since the team will probably get over their underpowered unit with time, it is a good opportunity to improve on their engine, so if the time comes, and it could by 2017, the French team could get the chance to not only have a returning yellow livery on their car, but an engine that will finally work.

All the anticipation of the decision with Renault and Lotus coming to a final report this week have been scuttled for the time being, until the man who can make the final decision itself, CEO Carlos Ghosn of Renault, can come out with a plan that will help the manufacture gain money selling their cars.

It could be a works team, which would give the brand name more publicity, or continue with the dull task of supplying engines, afraid that too much money would be spent; or even stopping altogether, to just sell cars and forget about racing , unless in the lower formulas.

However, some hints are beginning to go the works team way, as Renault has dropped one of their programs, the 3.5 series, and replaced it with a junior program. The junior version is something that has not been seen since the last time the squad had a works team, which was in 2010.

Regardless of the decision, and whatever the outcome, this past Tuesday morning viewed the other side of the coin of the Red Bull/ Renault affair as the French team’s manager, Cyril Abiteboul, finally opened up to ESPN F1’s Laurence Edmondson about what really happened, stating that the Austrian sponsored team did not live up to its bargain, of having an agreed “works team”.

“When you are a works team, for example Mercedes, it has one budget.” He said to Edmondson. “At the start of the year the first decision that they have to make is how much is going into the engine side and how much into the team side and in order to do that you look at the regulations, you look at your overall performance and you look in particular at the break down in performance between chassis, engine and driver. You make your plans and distribute the money and budget that you have available between those three elements. For me it’s a no brainer and that should be the way forward.”

“In my opinion it is related to the fact that the evolution of the engines has dramatically changed and the kind of relationship that we could afford to have, which honestly was not very sophisticated, was possible when the engine was frozen, but is not possible any more. In a context where the engine is not frozen and there is a bit of an arms race on engine technology, you can’t have the engine partner on one side and the team on the other; it doesn’t work that way anymore.

“If we want to have a long-term presence in F1 we have to change this model. Frankly, I would have thought it could be possible with Red Bull, it’s in their interest and it’s in our interest. So if it is possible with Red Bull fantastic, but if it’s not possible they will have to find a different way forward and we will have to find a different way forward after 2016.” Abiteboul concluded.

But where will Renault go? If you believe rumors from Britain’s Autosport, then the decision will come no later than September, but what will it be? If you had to play the odds, the chances are that the team will finally go alone and supply a few teams’ customer engines, because Renault can make money this way, and do not have to listen to the Red Bull egotists anymore.

So until Renault decides, remember that old song…

See you in September.