Red Bull – Renault war: Mateschitz ready to ask for contract termination?
At stake is the Austrian Scuderia's move to Mercedes power units
Despite the double podium in Budapest and the good news arriving on the new "Energy F1" currently on the test bench in Paris, Red Bull could soon ask the French engine manufacturer to terminate the contract for the supply of power units for the next championship. The Milton Keynes team would in fact be ready to switch to Mercedes units as early as 2016 and this could significantly ruin the plans of the transalpine manufacturer for next season. The negotiations with Lotus for the acquisition of the Enstone headquarters are currently at a standstill and Renault is trying in every way to move forward the now certain separation with the most important customer of the last five seasons. A very complex situation which, according to Auto Motor Und Sport, could even result in legal action by the Austrian team against its engineer.
In fact, if Renault continues to oppose, Red Bull could initiate legal action to obtain the unilateral termination of the contract due to lack of valid developments in the power unit. Red Bull no longer wants to fight with a weakened and highly unreliable engine and for this reason it would be ready to do anything to break away from the French engine manufacturer, the latter clearly behind schedule with the developments planned at the start of the championship.
The small Scuderia Toro Rosso could also be included in this tug of war, which is also tired of the continuous problems with the hybrid system of the transalpine power trains. Precisely in this sense, AMuS talks about a possible separation between Red Bull and the Faenza team (the hypothesis of the acquisition by Renault having been discarded), with the latter interested in the Honda units. This is where Mclaren's desire to create its own satellite team together with the Japanese engine manufacturer comes into play. All that remains is to wait and see how this complicated puzzle of alliances will be resolved for the next championship.
Roberto Valenti
Twitter: @RobertoVal94
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