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RB have been slagging Renault off for so long it surprises me the partnership didn't end sooner.

Indeed.

Red Bull were slagging Renault off throughout their multiple title winning streak.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

Every word of that criticism was and is deserved, for reasons that many people have gone into in the past.

Ricciardo doesn't trust them. No-one trusts Abiteboul. He is making sure he stays in the shop window for 2021. So long as he finishes first of the midfield runners, or at the least is running at the front of the midfield when the engine goes bang, no-one will think any less of him when making their decisions on drivers for 2021.

And he finally gets to earn his market value in the process. By keeping the contract short, he has done very well.

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Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

I tought the Aussie will stay at RBR. They have good car to win some races, but realiability had always been a weakness at RBR.
But ok, if you want a change then you have to do it,
same goes for Lewis. After beginning with Mclaren i tought he will stay forever there. But he made the change too.

When you have a habit of creating cars at less than size zero, then you deserve an equal amount of blame. Renault may not have produced a power unit comparable to Mercedes in the current era yet the majority of it's reliability issues (this year at least) have only been with Red Bull. Strange that.

When Red Bull were winning titles, they bitched about Renault in public. When Red Bull haven't been winning titles, they've bitched about Renault in public. Newey went through the same with McLaren in the early to mid-2000s. He went super aggressive with designs and then the car kept failing, Mercedes received the brunt of the blame. And in public.

There's a common denominator here...

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

Newey wouldn't have to be as aggressive in his designs if Renault could actually do what they are being paid a lot of money to do, and build a competitive engine. Without Newey and his magic and his pushing of the boundaries, Renault would have won just about fuck-all since 2006.

I don't believe they understand that, at least not yet. Next year will be a very painful meeting with reality for them when their best result is a flukey 4th in some wet GP whilst Red Bull Honda remain, at worst, exactly where they are. What will Abiteboul's excuse be then?

_________________
Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

Newey didn't need to size-zero multiple McLarens, but he did so. He has always pushed the limits. Sometimes he overdid it, like at the start of both 99 and 00 when he managed to take the best and most reliable engine in F1 and fit it into a car that broke down. The RB10 had a bad engine, sure, but it also had such OTT packaging and poor cooling that other components started to cook before the engine.

Newey is probably the only modern designer you could put in a category with Chapman, but let's not pretend he is infallible. The FW16 was infamously full of design mistakes, and the MP4-18 was a proper disaster.

and yet brazilian press call him a wizard like his work is the best ever and sourced out of "magic"

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

You’re talking about hypotheticals. Those are irrelevant. Which ever way you look at it Red Bull and Renault scored multiple titles together. They did so because of the resetting of the rules for 2009. When the rules changed again the winning ceased. Partly because of Renault’s inability to prepare and partly because of Red Bull’s designs.

Remember that the Renault package in the pre-hybrid era was nowhere near as powerful as the Ferrari and Mercedes, yet it had great reliability. Even so, Red Bull had multiple reliability issues because of Newey’s packaging. That arguably cost them the title in 2009 and nearly cost them the title in 2010, but it was also Newey’s brilliance and the Renault package which put them in title contention.

At the end of the day, you win as a team and lose as a team. Every person and every component is as important. Red Bull’s treatment of Renault throughout their title winning campaigns and thereafter, is a case study of how you don’t treat a partner.

I don’t care what happens in 2019 as much as you do. I’d like to see Renault continue their progress with their works team, plus I also want to see the Red Bull Honda partnership flourish.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

Renault will probably benefit hugely now that they don't have to make so many decisions with a demanding customer team in mind. McLaren won't put nearly as much pressure on them; they'll be happy that the engine is one less mess for them to sort out right now.

I would argue that the McLarens that were the most fragile and the most unreliable were those conceived and built and then raced in the years after Ferrari had walked all over everyone else. You bring up the MP4-18, which was designed in response to the 2002 Ferrari campaign. Yes, it was too radical, but after the performance relative to Ferrari it had to be so, because otherwise a repeat seemed inevitable (until Michelin made the difference for their teams). I would also reference the 2005 McLaren, which was a product of similar circumstances (Ferrari's 2004) and led to many grid drops for Kimi that probably cost him the title. With hindsight, neither of those cars needed to be as radical, neither needed to be size-0, but at the time it seemed necessary.



The 2010 Red Bull follows a similar pattern as the MP4-18 and the 2005 McLaren - a car pushing reliability to the limit in anticipation of a very difficult challenge against McLaren and Ferrari, who had both by that point figured out the new rulebook and had superior engines. And then in the subsequent years Newey and Prodroumou developed their EBD concept and it became less necessary to push the limits on packaging and cooling.

And the same story is being told with the new rulebook. Except that Renault share much more of the burden this time. They were the ones who told the FIA they were going to walk away if these over-complex engines were not introduced. They were the ones who, until very recently, charged their customers the most money to use a second-rate product. It was Red Bull who brought in Mario Illen on their own dime to try and find solutions to the problems Renault were having with reliability, until Renault decided that they didn't care what Illen had to offer. It is Renault who has missed just about every promised deadline on introducing performance upgrades, and the upgrades that have been introduced have not delivered. Red Bull were very patient with Renault and went far beyond what a customer would be expected to do to help Renault solve their problems. And it got thrown in their face. Renault showed Red Bull just what the "partnership" was worth to them. They have not been trying to accommodate Red Bull in any way since they bought Lotus back from Genii. Why should Red Bull pretend the situation is otherwise?

Contrast that with Honda, who have now shown tremendous humility when confronted with their failures and have changed their ways. They have embedded themselves within Red Bull Technologies. They have become much more open to the idea of hiring western engine designers to work with their domestic talent. Their engine is now much more reliable than before and it will continue to improve. Obviously it helps that they are spending more money on engine development than Renault, and next year the problem of money for Renault will get worse.

_________________
Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

While I agree with what you’re saying @

RtN I disagree with your outcome.

Pushing the limits is understandable and accepted yet there’s a risk with that strategy when it comes to the compromise with reliability. Red Bull had that throughout their 2009-2013 successful period and pointed fingers at Renault, never once looking internally. When Renault had their issues in 2014 and 2015 again the finger was pointed at their door.

You mention humility in reference to Honda (and I agree), yet fail to mention that McLaren tried to sort out issues in private first before throwing Honda over the coals in 2017. And also, Honda didn’t have to put up with many prior years bitching about it’s product from its partner. Renault never received thanks and appreciation it deserved for the integral part it played in Red Bull’s success. Is appreciation only deserved when someone pushed the limits of design and reliability? Perhaps if you’re going to talk about humility, Red Bull should eat some of that before anyone else.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

I don't blame McLaren for losing patience with Honda when they did. My only problem with McLaren is that they insinuated that the whole thing was Honda's fault and that they had a top-tier chassis. Unqualified hubris that was rewarded with nemesis very quickly.

Ultimately I don't know if Red Bull ever saw Renault as a partner. I don't think they did. Which would explain their attitude regarding the credit over the success - does any team especially praise a supplier for fulfilling their contract when the team enjoys success? And if they think that Renault made their job harder by providing a what was then slightly inferior product then it makes it less likely again that they would be praised.

I do think they have humility. I think their statements around the time the Honda deal was agreed point to that - they do not expect and will not demand improved performance from the first day with Honda, but will work together to get to that point. Maybe they aren't being honest, and we will find out later.

But ultimately this is about Ricciardo and his move, and his contract length suggests strongly that he has no real trust in Renault either. I think he is targeting Lewis' seat for 2021.

_________________
Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

Red Bull have never had humility lol

They made sure they snuck out the "Ricciardo leaving" story before Daniel's announcement a couple of hours later

Says it all really.

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RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

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RB used to be a 'fun' team, then they started dominating...

Ego's and all that.

I will never really forgive Red Bull for not punishing Sebastien after the whole Multi 21 debacle

"We gave you a clear instruction"

"Yeah well, I'm ignoring it"

"Oh well, well done you, you big race winning man"

"So what about that Multi 21 thing?

"Errrr, what multi 21 thing? dunno what you're talking about, just enjoy the win!"

That and blaming Webber for Vettel driving into him in Turkey 2010

"Fun" team indeed.

_________________
RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/paulhadsley

Be fair, it did get leaked to Dieter Rencken first.

_________________
Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

We can speculate and fight each other all we want but both RBR-Honda and Renault are 2 major unknowns for the coming years.

Next year we’ll be calling Daniel a clever chap or a dumb fuck or we’re saying it’s a sidestep with better pay

The only way this goes bad for Dan is if he gets beaten by the Hulk.

_________________
Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

I don't doubt that these exact situations had a part - however small - in Ricciardo's decision. The team favours Max in the exactly the same 'No, they are DEFINITELY equal' way that they did Seb.