While Australian Red Bull F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo has been linked with a move to the Ferrari team, replacing Kimi Raikkonen if not next year then in 2017, an interesting twist had the tongues wagging in the paddock at Silverstone last weekend during the British Grand Prix.
While the Red Bull F1 team has contractual links to Renault and Infiniti - including supply of the troublesome turbocharged V6 hybrid engine which has hampered the team this year – that contract falls into question should Renault buy the Lotus F1 (which it previously owned).
The would allow Red Bull to secure supply of the dominating Mercedes-Benz engines (some even suggesting they could be re-branded as Aston Martin – 5.0-perc-ent owned by Daimler – to provide separation from the ‘Benz factory F1 team which is currently first and second in the drovers’ championship).
Mercedes’ F1 boss Toto Wolff (perhaps tutored by team principle Niki Lauda in how to ‘wind-up’ the media!) did nothing to hose-down the flames when he told F1 journalists at Silverstone that should Renault buy-back Lotus (currently using Benz engines) that would create sufficient engineering capacity for his team to supply engines to Red Bull.
Lots of contracts and many millions of Euros are on the line here but it seems the Austrian-owned Red Bull F1 team, accustomed as it is to success as it is, may be exasperated by the lack of improvement from its French-owned engine supplier.
The F1 ‘Coconut Telegraph’ is saying there is an improved Red Bull engineering package heading to the Belgian Grand Prix in a few weeks but the experts question how much ground a ‘band-aid’ package can make up to the dominating Petronas Mercedes-Benz racers of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.
All of which must be perplexing for Ricciardo who has one eye on his ‘window’ to be and F1 World Champion.
While Ricciardo said he was flattered to see his name linked with Ferrari and pointed to his Red Bull contract running until the end of 2016, another podium finish for the Scuderia’s Sebastian Vetell in Britain - while his Red Bull was again parked in the garage after yet another Renault engine failure - must have sent the likeable West Aussie’s blood pressure rising.
