Red Bull held “exploratory discussions” with Ferrari over an engine supply deal in Formula 1 from next year before committing to starting its own powertrains company, Christian Horner has revealed.
Last October it was announced that Red Bull’s engine partner Honda had decided to leave F1 at the end of 2021.
It gave Red Bull just over a year to create a succession plan, which was quickly targeted as a continuation project with Red Bull finding a way to keep running Honda’s engines itself.
Before Red Bull decided to commit to taking over Honda’s engines, with the plan to eventually build its own engine for 2025, it explored whether any of Mercedes, Renault or Ferrari would entertain a customer deal from 2022.
Red Bull was powered by Ferrari in 2006 (pictured above) before switching to Renault, with which Red Bull won every drivers’ and constructors’ title from 2010 to 2013, but that partnership soured and ended bitterly in 2018.
Team principal Horner has revealed that while Mercedes and Renault were quickly ruled out as post-Honda options, Ferrari materialised as a potentially serious route.
“The most natural thing was to have a discussion with the existing suppliers,” Horner told F1’s official podcast.
“Mercedes was a very short conversation. Toto [Wolff, Mercedes boss] obviously wasn’t particularly keen on that one.
“Renault, their aspirations as a team didn’t include supplying a team like Red Bull.
“Probably the most willing was Ferrari. We had some exploratory discussions.
“But to be a customer, to have to accept all the integration, particularly with the new regulations that are coming, would be a massively hard pill to swallow.”
Red Bull’s chosen path with its own engine company was finally confirmed early this year, after lengthy negotiations over an engine development freeze starting from 2022.
Honda will still initially assist Red Bull, mainly in the assembly and maintenance of the engines, after this year, with Red Bull Powertrains being established in the meantime to develop the first-ever Red Bull F1 engine for 2025.
Horner said the huge investment going into the company had Red Bull boss Dietrich Mateschitz’s blessing because “he reached that conclusion himself that we had no choice” as returning to customer status in F1 would not be compatible with Red Bull’s ambitions of winning again.
“In reality, for us to remain in a competitive position, it was the only call,” said Horner.
“Engines up until this relationship with Honda have always been an Achilles’ heel to a degree.
“It’s the one element that you haven’t had control over. Taking control of your own destiny is a ballsy thing to do.
“And some people, I’m sure up and down the pitlane, said that ‘those guys are completely nuts because they have no idea what they’re taking on’.”
The strength of Red Bull’s Honda relationship, which is now yielding a fully-fledged title challenge in both championships this year, is the reason for Red Bull’s steadfast belief it needed to have its own engine programme.
Honda has given Red Bull a de facto works engine and even though the development has been undertaken primarily in Honda’s Sakura facility in Japan, it has gradually become more and more tailored to Red Bull’s chassis demands.
That is a night-and-day difference to the final three years of Red Bull’s Renault partnership, when the French manufacturer revived its works team and Red Bull felt it was not receiving the required level of attention to fight for titles.
It made Red Bull very wary of returning to customer status as Horner admitted the team has never had such a close relationship as it has with Honda, which he called “absolutely sensational”.
“We’ve enjoyed every minute of it,” he said. “They’re so committed. It’s such a wonderful company to work with.
“The engineering quality, the passion, the commitment, the desire, the honour, the dedication that they put into this product is unlike I’ve ever seen before.
“We’re dreadfully sorry that they’re going to be leaving us at the end of the year and leaving the sport.
“Once you’ve experienced that it’s very difficult to then go back to being a standard customer.
“That was a large part of the reason behind ‘no-no, we need to bring this under our own control now’.”
Honda developed an all-new engine for 2021 in its bid to win the championship before its exit.
After eight races, Max Verstappen and Red Bull sit atop the drivers’ and constructors’ standings, giving the Japanese manufacturer a serious shot at its first F1 titles of the hybrid era.
Horner would not say whether he thinks Honda is now regretting its choice to leave, only crediting its work so far and pointing to the relationship continuing in some capacity next, even if just in the background.
“They’ve made their decision, they’re withdrawing officially at the end of the year, and it’s a great shame because we’d love them to stay longer,” he said.
“We’re just about to go under a freeze for the next three years, costs are far more controlled, they’ve worked very hard to get themselves into a competitive position.
“Next year we’re aiming to retain some form of relationship. I’m not going to go into the details of the discussions but we’re aiming to have as soft a landing as we can as it’s an enormous challenge to start from scratch as an engine builder.”
