Motorsport Off Topic Thread

The article is pretty clear.

Red Bull have been co-developing the ICE and ERS systems with renualt.

There has been up until now a sticking point over the IP for this.

It appears that the IP terms have been agreed and that everything up to this point is joint IP therefore renualt will supply Redbull with the ICE as per the current development phase.

Red Bull will merge this ICE with their in house developed ERS, and in 2016 they will take on development of the PU as a whole.

They dont need to get their own variation of the PU race ready because they already have their own variation of the PU ready.
 
The fact that there literally cannot be separation of ICE from ERS makes me doubt that whole article tbh.

With the V8s the ERS was just bolted to the camshaft. But with the V6s the ERS is an integrated part of the PU. How exactly would Renault develop a Turbo ICE without ever attaching a turbo to it, for example?
 
Skeeter said:
The fact that there literally cannot be separation of ICE from ERS makes me doubt that whole article tbh.

With the V8s the ERS was just bolted to the camshaft. But with the V6s the ERS is an integrated part of the PU. How exactly would Renault develop a Turbo ICE without ever attaching a turbo to it, for example?
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There can be if you what is in place now is jointly developed between redbull and renault (which it appears to be). While redbull have been complaining that renault action could take years, they have been developing their own software and management systems, maybe even storage system, and will be able to plug that in.
 
Syla5 said:
The article is pretty clear.

Red Bull have been co-developing the ICE and ERS systems with renualt.

There has been up until now a sticking point over the IP for this.

It appears that the IP terms have been agreed and that everything up to this point is joint IP therefore renualt will supply Redbull with the ICE as per the current development phase.

Red Bull will merge this ICE with their in house developed ERS, and in 2016 they will take on development of the PU as a whole.

They dont need to get their own variation of the PU race ready because they already have their own variation of the PU ready.
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It's not that simple, technically, as Skeeter says, or politically.

How will the tokens work? Is it wholey manufactured by Renault (and so has to follow Renault's token path, if that's part of the deal) or is it wholey manufactured by Red Bull or a third party using Renault's designs, in which case they would likely have their own token system.

If it's truly split (as said surely not possible beyond the basics like the battery store) with Red Bull doing their own ERS, then surely that's not going to work within the current regulations at all, as you've got multiple manufacturers. Remember the current regulations aren't restricted to the named manufacturer over a season, but to the core manufacturer, the one who builds the bits, and surely this theory falls on its head if there is more than one manufacturer.
 
this_is_gav said:
It's not that simple, technically, as Skeeter says, or politically....SNIP
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Try not overcomplicating it.

Current Renault PU is IP of both Renault and Red Bull.

Next year both Renault and Red Bull start from the same PU start point BUT then go their own separate ways regarding development.

With tokens and development next year I suspect very much that Red bull/Infiniti etc will be classed as its own engine manufacturer with the same amount of tokens as everyone else.

Further to this i doubt very much there is anything stopping Renault from manufacturing the ICE components to Red Bull’s specifications... however i suspect what is more likely is AVL will take over this step in the process, meaning Red bull and Renault then have no connection except the same start point.

5 engine manufacturers next year, looks positive.
 
Surely the PU is an assembled unit with parts supplied from many places and companies which is then labelled as one product. It's the cominbation of products and components that make up a unique PU put together by one body at the end of the chain.

Essentailly, as I see it, Red Bull will have their own unique PU and it's spec and components, large or small, will differ. I don't think it really matters who makes the engine block, pistons, ERS etc as they're all from certain suppliers. Assuming RB build it at the end of the chain or find someone else to do it, then it's their PU regardless of its make up.

I guess the red tape is who owns the IP therefore Renualt allowing RB to use it. Sounds like that's been all sorted out, so Red Bull can label it what they want and call it their own.
 
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The point is that those components cannot be built to work together without being together during the design and development phase.

If you slice the development in 2 then your just going to get massive issues with making components that fall either side of the line talking to each other.

The PU is made up of an ICE, a turbo, an MGUK, an MGUH, a battery and the control electronics. I can see how making an ICE can sit with Renault and making the battery and control electronics can sit with RBR. But I cannot see how the MGUK, MGUH and turbo can be developed by only one of the pair of them without causing massive issues.

Unlike the V8, the MGUK is embedded with block of the ICE, and the MGUH is in/around the turbo and/or block of the ICE. I cannnot see any way that RBR can develop the ERS part in isolation from Renault?
 
Skeeter said:
The point is that those components cannot be built to work together without being together during the design and development phase.

If you slice the development in 2 then your just going to get massive issues with making components that fall either side of the line talking to each other.

The PU is made up of an ICE, a turbo, an MGUK, an MGUH, a battery and the control electronics. I can see how making an ICE can sit with Renault and making the battery and control electronics can sit with RBR. But I cannot see how the MGUK, MGUH and turbo can be developed by only one of the pair of them without causing massive issues.

Unlike the V8, the MGUK is embedded with block of the ICE, and the MGUH is in/around the turbo and/or block of the ICE. I cannnot see any way that RBR can develop the ERS part in isolation from Renault?
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Your missing the very important point.

The PU is not going to be split developed. Next year redbull/(insert name of most money $$$) will develop their own PU...the start point is just the same as what they have now/will have when the take the Renualt 12 token update, because they have been systematically involved throughout the year.

2016 wont see the ICE being developed by renualt and sold to RB.

The argunment it would seem has been over the IP of the current 12 token renualt unit. Now it has been agreed that the IP is shared it means redbull can take all the information, have a working reliable, if underpowered PU and take it their own way next year.

So ICE, Turbo, MGU-K, MGU-H, Battery Pack etc will go down seperate development routes as complete packages, execatly like ferrari and mercedes now.
 
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Fair play Syla5, Mark Hughes has tweeted that he believes it to be true and that Red Bull, or one of their partners (Ilmor presumably) will be developing their own version of Renault's entire unit. It seems this will based on the Brazil-spec Renault PU.

How do Renault think this is going to work for them, assuming they follow through and buy Lotus? There's a top team taking their technology who will surely be faster than them for the foreseeable future due to the massive investment and enormous design team. Unless Renault have got some monster plans (if so, why rehire Maldonado?) it's surely going to be a PR disaster, irrespective of who makes the better PU.

This must have been in the works for months and months, and Red Bull must have either invested a fortune in their own facilities or in someone else's, which raises the question of why they've been squabbling with Mercedes and Ferrari and flirting with Honda and threatening to leave. They must believe that they can't match what Mercedes and Ferrari are doing, but that still makes you wonder where Honda comes into things.
 
Marketing, nothing more or less. Mercedes spend say 500mil and win and get huge value from marketing out of that spend but nothing stops a team spending 180million, coming 4th and still getting very effective marketing. Winning isn't everything in marketing, Renault aren't selling the same sports cars that Ferrari are anyway. Appearing in the same sport makes people think they can make top engines and marketing these days is as much about brand awareness as anything else.


This has clearly been in the works for a while, you don't mid season throw 10s/100s of millions at outfitting a building for engine development and their work in getting Renault to be helped out by this other engine company started last season. What the actual situation was who knows.

Maybe RBR/Illiens plan was to come in for say 2017-18 with an entirely RBR/Illien engine but the plans had to change. So this leads to them needing to dump Renault and were looking for an alternative engine for 1-2 years(as Mclaren should have) before bringing their own.

Being unable to secure a different engine they make an agreement with Renault to share some of their ERS ideas and probably pay some money for their ICE design and split ways, jump starting their engine which isn't ideal but gives them an engine under their own control for next year in which they can dump as much money and as many people as they want into it.

Maybe RBR wanted a Merc/Ferrari engine purely because they wanted to be sneaky and learn as much as they could about it before bringing in their own, maybe Merc/Ferrari realised this is what RBR were up to and why they seemed to change their minds about supplying RBR.

This does somewhat all lead me to believe that however it ends up playing out and whatever the initial plans, that RBR are rushing into producing their own engine earlier than they would have liked..... which didn't work out great for Mclaren. Though while rushing the 2014 was a fairly solid engine to start from and if they've been quietly developing that engine for the past 12-18 months then it won't be as rushed as Hondas.
 
I think we must assume that the 2016 Renault will be different enough to the 2015 engine that Renault aren't concerned about Red Bull having it.

However, RBR are not engine manufacturers. They are not geared up or tooled up enough to be (I've been to the factory, they bearly look tooled up enough to produce 2 chassis, which makes the results even more impressive). So what they will be doing is modifying an old Renault 2015 design. But I assume these will be in a limited supply as Renault won't be interested in producing lots of old spec engines for someone who isn't going to put the Renault name on them.

So for this to be true I'd say it's a short term stop gap, and that they will be praying they don't blow too many of them up and exhaust their supply.
 
EVH said:
I did say they'd go with Renault, but noooooo :p
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They've gone with Renault because they had no choice, but clearly this is something they've been building towards for probably the best part of a year. Given the conversations they've had you have to think they would have preferred to have stuck a Mercedes or Ferrari plant in there, despite probably already investing more than Manor's annual budget in this.

I'm still curious about the Honda talks though. Surely they can't think Honda are going to be a better option next year too? :confused:
 
I doubt Renault actually produce their own engines. The manufacturing/assembly is almost certainly contracted out to someone lke Mecachrome already in which case there's no reason they couldn't produce engines for Red Bull assuming the relevant IP issues are resolved
 
kaiowas said:
I doubt Renault actually produce their own engines. The manufacturing/assembly is almost certainly contracted out to someone lke Mecachrome already in which case there's no reason they couldn't produce engines for Red Bull assuming the relevant IP issues are resolved
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I think the engine factory is still at Viry-Châtillon, ran by Renault Sport F1.
 
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