Caporegime
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 33,188
I'd imagine the Racing Point would swap their Merc engine for a much cheaper Renault at that point
Renault have charged more than any other team for engines for a long time, certainly since 2014 but I've heard since long before that as well. Now Renault could decide to drop prices to get teams back but it just doesn't seem to be their deal to do that.
Starting to feel like Renault could well be out of F1. Throughout the hybrid era up to end of 2015 they weren't really committed, they cheaped out on the engine because they were deciding between leaving F1 and buying a team which itself was nuts. If they were going to leave they wanted to leave end off 2013 and not waste any money on hybrid engines, once they got in they should have invested and bought a team to start 2014 and have a decent engine. Those decisions are still hurting them today. Then it took Horner, as I said at the time, quite rightly screaming at them publicly to decide to either leave F1 or buy a team. They finally bought a team and immediately increased investment in the engine. That 2015 Renault engine was laughable and RBR had their worst season since before 2009 as a result. 2016 they weren't brilliant but the engine made a big step in the latter part of the season, without Horner calling them out in 2015 they'd probably never have improved.
Now they are facing having tried to build a team but 4 years in producing nothing at all impressive, the engine isn't terrible any more but still massive reliability issues hit them early this year. If they don't have a single customer from 2021 then I think either we get new teams in 2022 (which actually sounds possible) or Renault are going to start seeing no real payback from the engines and I think will look to sell the team. In fact I'd somewhat expecting that Renault are going to be having talks with some people leading up to 2021 and if 2021 doesn't start well car wise, they'll push forwards with a sale.