Christian Horner, Red Bull Formula 1 team boss, revealed that its former engine partner Renault was only interested in F1 marketing.
Both parties have earned their distinct mark in F1 during 2010 to 2013 before hybrid era. However, both parties struggled to win fifth world championship titles from 2014.
New regulations strained the relationship between the two. Because Reanult could not manage to produce a competitive power unit that could challenge the German engine.
Therefore, Horner and his team failed to win fifth title with the French manufacturer.
Despite Horner’s try, Renault’s CEO and Chairman did not show much interest in the sport. He believes that Luca de Meo, Renault last CEO, did not have any passion for sport.
“That was very difficult, because we were a customer,” he said.
“I must have gone to Paris three or four times to sit down with Carlos Ghosn, the chairman at the time, to say ‘look, if you’re in this business – you’re spending a lot of money.
“But you might need to spend just a little bit more, a little bit more wisely, otherwise you’re wasting what you’re currently spending, you’re not getting return from that.’
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“But his heart was never in Formula 1, it was just a marketing thing that ticked the box. That passion and drive – if he didn’t have it, how could you expect that to flow through his organisation?
“Their current CEO is full of passion and that will drive performance and results because it emanates from the very top.”
Red Bull had to part ways with Renault and chose Honda to work with instead. The Japanese had been in the sport with McLaren, but could not impress with the performance.
Nonetheless, Horner was impressed with Honda’s passion. He was ready to risk for a better future.
“There’s always a path to getting back [to the top] and you’ve just got to look at that path and say ‘okay what do we need to achieve along that journey?’” he said.
“We had a very clear area that was our Achilles heel which was our engine wasn’t as powerful as our competitors, so it’s [a question of] ‘okay how can we push our engine supplier?’
“So we tried every possible tactic to push, motivate them into a more competitive position. And we were able to win races, we could grab opportunities. But we couldn’t put a sustained campaign together.
“So then it became about ‘okay we need to take a risk, we’ve got to get out of this rut, we’ve got to do something. We’re just repeating the same mistake, so let’s do something different. Let’s go with Honda.’
“Honda had been a disaster with McLaren. McLaren had ditched Honda. They walked away from them. Honda were on the verge of leaving the sport. But we saw the same passion and desire in them, and on top of that, resource.”
