Horner: Renault out of focus posted in F101 | 07 | 2014
RED BULL BOSS Christian Horner (pictured, left) believes engine supplier Renault made a mistake by not focusing development of its 2014 power unit around one car.
While other engine builders Mercedes and Ferrari concentrated on building their engines specifically for their works teams, Horner believes Renault went the wrong way by trying to please all their customers.
Speaking ahead of this weekend's British Grand Prix at Silverstone, Horner, whose team endured its worst race of the season in Austria 10 days ago and left him branding Renault's performance as "unacceptable", believes Renault should have concentrated on Red Bull.
"You're never going to be able to satisfy everybody," he said. "When you look at the engine Ferrari has made, the customers have had to adapt their cars accordingly.
"Mercedes likewise, whereas Renault has tried to keep all of their customers happy, which is an admirable thing to do, but it's not the best way to be competitive."
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And Horner admitted his Red Bull team were concerned about Renault's readiness for this year's engine regulation changes as far back as the end of 2012, weeks after Sebastian Vettel had clinched the third of his world titles powered by a Renault V8.
"We raised our concerns as far back as the end of 2012 with the direction the project was going," Horner continued.
"But designing and building engines is not our core competence — nor should it be — we're a chassis manufacturer.
"And I don't think any of us could have envisaged that Renault would be as far behind as they have been."
But the Red Bull boss emphasised it was committed to helping Renault improve.
"We've had some discussion with Renault and they fully accept the situation they're in is not where we should be," he stated.
"All we can do is try to help and support them with the resources we have to try and improve things.
"Obviously, the difficulty we have within the regulations as they currently are is that it's very difficult to make significant changes.
"But I think fuel is going to be a key area of development: Total has got some stuff in the pipeline that looks encouraging, but Renault is only just starting to catch up to where Mercedes were six months ago.
"We just need to make sure we engineer ourselves out of the situation we're currently in, and that's fundamentally supporting Renault to get more out of the power unit."
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Jim McGill