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The Red Bull-Renault alliance was once the dominant force in Formula 1. Yet after its glory years with Sebastian Vettel, the partnership descended into years of argument and acrimony before ending in divorce.
The 12-season marriage ran from 2007 to 2018, including a three-year spell when Red Bull couldn’t even call its Renault engines by their name, before Red Bull instead joined forces with Honda.
It was that move that transformed Red Bull from a team that had slipped back to only taking occasional wins to one that once again conquered the world with Max Verstappen.
Considering Red Bull and Renault won 59 races and four world championship doubles together, it’s remarkable just how badly the partnership broke down.
It was the ultimate marriage of convenience that, after some remarkable success, quickly became so inconvenient for Red Bull that it could only get back to the top by ditching the engine supplier that propelled it to its first F1 titles.
It was one of the most successful team-and-engine supplier combinations in F1 history, but its descent into five years of very public back-biting and failure means it is now remembered more for the bad times than the good.
To understand what went wrong, and why Renault needed to be binned to pave the way for the Verstappen era, we have to go all the way back to the early days of Red Bull Racing.
Honeymoon period
Renault was Red Bull’s third engine partner in its first three years in F1. Originally, Red Bull used Cosworth engines after taking over the Jaguar project in December 2004, before signing a two-year deal for customer Ferrari V8s from 2006.
But Adrian Newey, who joined Red Bull as chief technical officer in February of that year, was unhappy with the fact this deal was for old-specification Ferrari engines.
When it became clear Ferrari would not even consider parity, Newey pushed for a change. He justifiably believed Red Bull needed latest-spec engines to have any chance of being more than a midfielder.
A deal was struck for a Renault engine supply for 2008 and 2009. Crucially, this guaranteed Red Bull the same specification as the factory team.
The Ferrari deal was cancelled by mutual consent, although that supply was effectively shunted to newly-acquired and rebranded Toro Rosso, with a new contract signed for two years there and an option for a third.
Although it was Ferrari-engined Toro Rosso that famously took the first victory for a Red Bull F1 team at Monza in 2008 with Vettel, the Renault switch was a huge success.
In 2009, Red Bull-Renault won six races, and a new engine deal was signed for 2010 onwards. This effectively made Red Bull Renault’s frontline partner given the sale of the works team to Genii Capital.
Then, Vettel led Red Bull to the first of four consecutive drivers’ and constructors’ championship doubles. The spell from 2010 to 2013 is among the most successful for any team in F1 history.
Renault was a crucial part of that success. While it didn’t have the most powerful engine, it was potent enough and scored well on driveability.
Renault also did outstanding work on maximising exhaust-blown diffusers throughout this period, even as the regulations tightened up to reduce the effectiveness of such aero tricks.
The relationship wasn’t always completely serene. In fact, even during the glory days there was plenty of antagonism beneath the surface.
Red Bull made it clear publicly that the Renault wasn’t as powerful as some of its rivals’ engines, which didn’t delight its supplier.
In particular, that was made very obvious in public when Red Bull regularly lobbied for Renault to be granted freedom to make changes to improve the engine.
That’s despite the engine freeze that ran from 2007 to 2013 that prevented upgrades, except for with permission for reasons of cost, reliability or safety - a definition that was sometimes stretched to allow a struggling manufacturer to catch up.
Renault wasn’t exactly content with the relationship and how its role in Red Bull’s titles was portrayed, its chief operating officer Carlos Tavares saying in 2013: “We are frustrated by the lack of recognition we get for beating the likes of Ferrari and Mercedes.”
Despite that, the first seven years of the Red Bull-Renault partnership were a roaring success. But things were about to take a turn for the worse and expose the underlying fractures in the relationship.
The cracks appear
The turning point in the Red Bull-Renault story was the introduction of the 1.6-litre V6 turbo hybrid engine regulations in 2014.
Renault was all over the place in pre-season testing. Red Bull was limited to just 1063 miles of running across 12 days - about one-third of what the leaders managed - encountering endless problems with burning bodywork on top of the engine troubles.
But it wasn’t just Red Bull that had trouble. The other three teams using Renault engines - Toro Rosso, Caterham and Lotus - also had difficulty.
It wasn’t until the season-opening Australian Grand Prix they were even given the go-ahead to run at full power after software changes designed to reduce engine knock problems.
That pointed to one of the key problem areas. Engine knock is the sound an engine makes when the combustion process isn’t well controlled, with the high-pressure created by the turbocharger in the combustion chamber a key trigger. Big improvements were required in terms of both the hardware and the fine control of the injector.
Renault made several mistakes. Firstly, it started later than it should have done on its hybrid engine project. Secondly, it had not focused as much on the internal combustion engine element as it should have done, its head of trackside operations Remi Taffin admitting at the end of 2014 that Renault had “perhaps underestimated that part”.
Renault’s struggles were one of the big stories of the season. While Daniel Ricciardo won three times for Red Bull, it was a painful fall from grace for the team while Mercedes took charge.
Mercedes dominated with what was the only split turbo design in F1 at that time. This placed the hot part of the turbo - the turbine - at the rear of the engine and the cold part - the compressor - at the front. Honda followed that in 2015, but it wasn’t until 2022 that Renault adopted the design.
Red Bull’s public criticism of Renault was strong. “The reliability is unacceptable. The performance is unacceptable,” Horner declared in June that year. “There needs to be change at Renault. It can't continue like this.”
Red Bull evaluated every possible alternative, but Mercedes, Ferrari and 2015 incomer Honda weren’t interested in a deal that would give Red Bull parity with their main teams.
Newey says consideration was even given to Red Bull building its own engine, but that was ruled out on cost grounds - he called it a “colossal” expense.
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So Red Bull had no choice but to battle on with Renault. But it all had a big impact on the team as Newey stepped back into a role that meant he only spent about half of his time on the F1 project.
“I didn’t want to be flogging my guts out trying to find competitiveness in a car that couldn’t compete on engine performance,” he admitted.
Much therefore depended on Renault making the expected gains in 2015.
The schism
Unfortunately for Red Bull and Renault, the big step forward promised for 2015 didn’t materialise. In fact, the situation got worse.
There were major changes to the design. Renault chief technical officer Rob White said there were “very few carry-over pieces” from 2014 to 2015.
The result was an engine that did produce more power - sort of. This only actually manifested itself in bench testing and proved harder to deliver in the real world once in the car.
There were also significant driveability problems, as well as reliability troubles, notably with piston failures early in the season. As Horner put it after the 2015 Australian Grand Prix, where Ricciardo finished a lapped eighth, Renault could not “afford” such a bad start.
Renault’s struggles were a recurring storyline. The focus initially was on fixing the driveability problems, which did at least improve after the first five or six races.
However, that improvement wasn’t enough. And there were also ongoing reliability question marks. These were so severe that Ricciardo was onto his third engine of the season for the third race weekend in China!
Red Bull had low expectations but didn’t expect it to be this bad.
“I don’t think anybody expected us to be on engine three at race three in any of our scenarios,” was how Horner put it at the time.
Horner urged Renault to focus on adding performance even at the risk of reliability, as it became clear there was a major cultural disagreement between Red Bull and Renault in terms of how aggressive to be.
There was also frustration that Mario Illien - co-founder of engine specialist Ilmor Engineering, which turned into Mercedes-Benz High-Performance Powertrains in 2005 after a spell under the Mercedes-Ilmor name - wasn’t being properly utilised after Red Bull brought him in to assist Renault.
Illien’s company, confusingly also called Ilmor Engineering - an offshoot of the original company that he kept control of - was working on development in parallel. When it proposed an upgrade package that would deliver a significant performance gain, Renault declined and claimed - erroneously - that it had already developed a similar step.
As a result of this mess, Red Bull redoubled its efforts to find an alternative supplier. There was hope a Mercedes deal could be reached after initial talks with Niki Lauda that led to a handshake agreement, but the Mercedes board ultimately turned that down. As Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said, there were discussions in the summer of 2015 but the answer was ultimately a “flat no”.
Ferrari was willing to supply Red Bull, but only with year-old specification engines, making that deal a no-go. Newcomer Honda wasn’t able to supply anyone other than McLaren thanks to an exclusive deal requiring permission from the team to supply a customer, which meant Red Bull still needed Renault.
The trouble was Red Bull had already notified Renault that it would terminate its contract a year early. So now it had to go back to Renault cap-in-hand to restore the deal for 2016. The risk of Red Bull being without an engine later led to the FIA introducing a rule that could compel a manufacturer to provide a supply.
In December 2015, after a year in which Renault’s development in terms of performance was badly limited given the focus on improving reliability, a renegotiated deal covering 2016 was announced.
But while the previous Renault engine deal had been eased through a sponsorship deal with Infiniti - part of the Nissan-Renault alliance - Red Bull now had to find alternative funding to pay what was now a very high price.
Watch giant Tag Heuer paid for the deal, and badged the engines. The new arrangement also promised significant financial penalties for public criticism of the engine.
Red Bull fell foul of that almost immediately when Ricciardo criticised the upgrade brought to the Brazilian Grand Prix, saying “it hasn’t really given us anything”. He said it was “back to the drawing board” - which Renault itself actually agreed with.
Red Bull also lost its de facto works status, with Renault buying what was then called Lotus to recreate its own factory operation for 2016.
Marking time
After a winless year in 2015, Red Bull entered this new phase of its relationship with Renault.
There were the same old problems, as while Renault did improve the engine package was only ever good enough to snipe for the occasional victory.
With no alternative supplier forthcoming, Red Bull did a new deal with Renault to continue to run ‘Tag Heuer’ engines in 2017 and 2018.
There were two wins in 2016, three in 2017 and four in 2018. Renault continued to lag behind Mercedes and reliability was never rock solid. While Red Bull tried to be publicly positive in 2016 in particular, the relationship continued to be fractious - as viewers of Drive to Survive will know well.
Renault had too many problems, particularly with its MGU-K development programme. It had intended to introduce a new one at the start of 2017, but it was unreliable and didn’t get used on a grand prix weekend until mid-2018.
When Renault reverted to using its 2016-specification MGU-K for the start of 2017, Red Bull even developed parts to make it compatible with the latest Renault power units.
Even then, there were still problems as an MGU-K failure put Max Verstappen out of the 2018 Hungarian Grand Prix. That was a race Verstappen could have challenged for victory in, leading to an expletive-laden rant over the radio at the Renault engine problems being a “joke”.
This retirement also led to Horner slating the service Red Bull was getting from Renault.
“We pay multi-millions for these engines, for a first-class product, and it is clearly some way below that,” he raged.
Even one of Red Bull-Renault’s finest hours in this spell, Ricciardo’s win in Monaco, came after a mid-race MGU-K failure that would have, as Horner put it, “stuffed” its chance at any other track.
There were also problems caused by the Renault team’s fuel and lubricants supply deal with BP Castrol that started in 2016. Red Bull continued with its partner, ExxonMobil, creating the need for separate development work with both.
Red Bull was often frustrated by dyno time being limited by Renault for the ExxonMobil development process throughout this period.
The underachieving works team was getting priority, understandably given Red Bull was only a customer now, and that was yet another reason for wanting a change of supplier.
Red Bull spent this period making the best of a bad job and looking for an alternative supplier. When McLaren’s relationship with Honda imploded, an opportunity presented itself.
McLaren and Honda parted company, with that deal finalised in September 2017. McLaren, ironically, picked up a Renault engine supply deal for 2018 it was confident would allow it to take a great step forward. Red Bull still had Renault power that season, but recognised the potential in Honda.
Originally, Honda had a deal to supply Sauber with customer engines in 2018. That was announced in April 2017, but three months later that deal was broken in what was Fred Vasseur’s first significant act after being appointed Sauber team principal.
Red Bull stepped in and agreed a deal with Honda to supply Toro Rosso as a test for a possible full relationship in 2019. It was a close run thing and Honda seriously considered pulling out of F1 entirely, but the chance to partner with Red Bull was too enticing.
Connected to this was a significant driver move. Question marks over Honda’s performance played a part in Ricciardo’s shock departure at the end of 2018, Ricciardo turning down a lucrative Red Bull contract offer for a $25million-a-year deal to spearhead Renault. However, there were other factors at play there - notably the fact he had been usurped as team leader. Crucially, Verstappen kept the faith.
Things immediately started well between Honda and Toro Rosso. The relationship was a more collaborative one than that with McLaren, starting off with giving Honda the leeway to produce a slightly longer engine.
McLaren, infamously, had pushed Honda to reduce component size to gain a packaging advantage - exemplified by the what it called its “size zero” design concept of 2015 conceived to maximise the aerodynamic performance.
And early on, there was a great result for Toro Rosso-Honda as Pierre Gasly finished fourth in the second race of the season in Bahrain.
Red Bull had yet to decide whether or not to go with Honda for 2019, but the acid test was an upgrade Honda had planned for the seventh race of the season in Canada. While so many Renault upgrades had failed to deliver, Honda’s did and in mid-June, a decision Horner described as “clear cut” was made and Red Bull announced the plan to switch.
Red Bull and Honda went on to dominate F1. The partnership’s first win came in just its ninth race with Verstappen’s victory in the 2019 Austrian Grand Prix. Across the first two seasons, there were just five wins but in 2021 the floodgates opened and the Verstappen era began - recapturing, and in many ways eclipsing, the glory years with Vettel and Renault.
Renault has since won just one race, a lucky victory at the Hungaroring for Esteban Ocon in 2021. It has now decided to close down its in-house engine programme at the end of 2025, with its Alpine squad becoming a Mercedes customer team in 2026.
That will bring to an end the sorry story of Renault’s hybrid F1 engines, an era in which it has won just 13 races as an engine supplier.
It might not have seemed like it at the time, but the alliance with Red Bull that descended into so much acrimony really did prove to be glory days - for Renault.
And it was only the switch to Honda power, after years of trying to find an alternative, that paved the way for Red Bull’s return to the top and Verstappen’s recent F1 supremacy.
