Red Bull Racing Extends Engine Deal With Renault

Posted by on September 9, 2011 No comments

Red Bull Racing and Renault Sport F1 have extended their partnership for a further five years. This partnership will include the new specifications 1.6L V6-turbo power units which are to be introduced from 2014, it was announced on Friday.

Renault Sport F1 will be supplying V8 engines and KERS Motor Generator Units to Red Bull Racing for 2012 and 2013. Within the new agreement, a technical joint venture will be set up, in which Red Bull Technology and Renault Sport F1 will collaborate to develop innovative technical solutions for the V6-based power unit that will be introduced from 2014.

Speaking about the agreement, Bernard Rey, President of Renault Sport F1 remarked: “We are delighted that the Red Bull Racing-Renault partnership has been extended for a further five years, which will take us to a decade of collaboration. Red Bull Racing and Renault share the views that stability is a fundamental condition to perform at the top levels of competition.”
Red Bull will continue to be powered by Renault engines for the next five years.
Getty Images

Jean-François Caubet, managing director of Renault Sport F1, added, “The V6 power units due to be introduced from 2014 represent a huge undertaking and to have the input, resources and vast in-house F1 car expertise of Red Bull Technology will help the team at Renault Sport F1 in Viry-Châtillon specify, design and develop a competitive unit from the start of the new regulations and optimize its structural integration into the chassis. Having this particular support will of course be to the advantage of our other team partners, who will indirectly benefit from the joint expertise of the Red Bull Racing and Renault Sport F1.”

Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner said the team was thrilled about this agreement. “Renault Sport F1 has always been very straight-forward to work with, which has been a contributing factor to the on-going success of the Red Bull Racing-Renault partnership. Together we have so far achieved 22 wins, 32 pole positions, 1130.5 World Championship points and two World Championships. As the relationship moves forward, we intend to build on this and look forward to working with the Renault-Nissan alliance during future World Championship campaigns.”

Source: IBN Live

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Red Bull Racing To Rock Austin, Texas!

Posted by on August 16, 2011 No comments

Red Bull Racing plans to take a show car to Austin, Texas this weekend so that David Coulthard can give American F1 fans a sneak preview ahead of the return of the United States Grand Prix next year.

American F1 fans will be able to get into gear early ahead of next year’s United States Grand Prix return, as runaway 2011 world championship leaders Red Bull Racing prepare to take to the streets of Austin, Texas in a special demonstration run.

The 2012 US Grand Prix will be held around the all-new Circuit of the Americas, but pending the circumnavigation of the inevitable red tape, Red Bull plans to give fans a sneak preview, as 13-time grand prix-winner turned BBC F1 pundit David Coulthard is set to thrill them with a show car demo for a promotional video on Saturday morning.

“It is exciting that Red Bull, the defending world champion and current points leader, is interested in promoting Austin to its global fan base,” enthused Circuit of the Americas executive vice-president Bruce Knox, according to the Statesman newspaper. “The event will be directly managed and produced by Red Bull’s promotional team, one that has produced many world-class events.”

Indeed, Red Bull has undertaken similar recent demonstration runs in Munich’s Olympic Stadium and at the Sochi Speed Festival in Russia, but in order for the Austin initiative to go ahead, it must first be approved by the Texas Department of Public Safety. The State Preservation Board has reportedly rejected Red Bull’s request to film given that commercial advertising is prohibited in the Capitol area, where the event would take place.

Coulthard, meanwhile, has stressed the need for F1 to make a success of its American endeavour this time around, following the ignominious end to the Indianapolis period.

Source: Crash.net

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Kovalainen ‘Very Likely’ To Stay At Team Lotus In 2012

Posted by on July 12, 2011 No comments

Whilst insisting that ‘it’s still very early days’ in terms of contract talks regarding next season, Tony Fernandes has conceded that it is ‘very likely’ that Heikki Kovalainen will remain on-board at Team Lotus into a third consecutive campaign in F1 2012.

Since being released by McLaren-Mercedes at the end of 2009 after failing to provide a consistent challenge to team-mate Lewis Hamilton, Kovalainen has impressed alongside fellow former grand prix-winner Jarno Trulli at Lotus, out-qualifying the renowned single-lap specialist 16-12 to-date – and eight-one this season – and making it through to Q2 on four occasions, comfortably the most of any of the ‘new team’ contenders.

What’s more, he has out-raced the Italian veteran more often than not, and achieved the Anglo/Malaysian outfit’s best result thus far with twelfth place in last year’s Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka.

With an unfailingly positive outlook to-boot, the Finn has seamlessly assumed the role of de facto team leader at Lotus – and with Trulli tipped to hang up his F1 helmet come season’s end, it has been argued that the 29-year-old is now all-but invaluable to the team as it strives to climb its way up the grand prix grid. Fernandes has reflected that a new deal for the popular and well-respected Finn is in all probability little more than a formality.

“It is very likely,” the Malaysian entrepreneur told Finnish newspaper Turun Sanomat, when asked about Kovalainen’s chances of retaining his seat. “Heikki is a consistent performer and always gets 100 per cent from the car. He gives a lot of energy to the team. Heikki has become a good friend, so if he is satisfied with us, I see no reason to change.”

Source: Crash.net

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Schumacher: No Doubts Over Next Year

Posted by on July 8, 2011 No comments

Michael Schumacher insists that there is no doubt he will see out his three-year contract at Mercedes GP, despite recent speculation suggesting he could walk away from the deal early if he was unhappy.

Team principal Ross Brawn said at the European GP that it was Schumacher’s decision alone on whether he continued racing in 2012 – with the German understood to have a clause in his contract that would allow him to stop.

Speaking ahead of the British GP, however, Schumacher said there was no question of him activating that clause – and he was fully committed to continuing.

“I always had the option to stop at any time I wanted,” he explained. “But I aim for an achievement and a fixed time. I have always said it’s a three-year programme and that’s what it is.”

Schumacher reckoned he was still improving since his comeback and that he did not yet feel he was at the peak of his ability.

“I feel good first of all, and you always improve,” he said when asked for his feelings about his comeback. “In all my first 16 years of F1 I always have felt that I constantly developed, maybe in smaller rates than you do initially. And so I do.

“It actually took a while to get back in to the habit of the whole working arrangement and I guess that’s a lot more easy for me now, but I still do understand that I am learning how to work with the team and how to get the car to work for me.

“This is a constant development and I am certainly not yet at 100%, although you could probably say you never can be.”

And Schumacher insisted he was not too concerned that his return to F1 has not delivered the level of success that he achieved earlier in his career.

“You always judge your performance possibility with the car that you have in hand,” he said. “It was like that in the past and so it is now, and you try to maximise this.

“If you achieve that you can be happy about yourself, if not you can be unhappy. You keep working. You know that only through work and steady development you may arrive back to the top as it happened to me in the past.

“There is no magic to arrive up front. It’s all about timing, steady progress, staying motivated and working hard.”

Source: Yahoo! Sport

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Williams And Renault Will Reunite In 2012

Posted by on July 4, 2011 No comments

Williams and Renault will be back together again in 2012 and 2013, the last two seasons before the new turbo formula.

The team says that “the newly-formed co-operation includes several other exciting business and marketing opportunities, with a view to continuing after the introduction of the new, energy efficient, turbocharged V6 engines in 2014.”

Renault will now have four customers, while Cosworth is left with just Virgin and HRT.

Williams and Renault previously worked together from 1989 to 1999, although the last two years were without works support.

Renault Sport F1 president Bernard Rey, commented, “Renault remains in Formula One to achieve success in a cost efficient way and the partnership with Williams has great potential to add to the results we have notched up over recent years with our other partner teams.

“Williams has recently taken several important steps, both commercially and technically, to update its operations and we feel that this partnership is another important step in its rigorous plan. It reiterates how determined the team is to achieve results, which matches perfectly with our own objectives.

“From 2012 onwards the fact that we will have four partners puts us ahead of other engine manufacturers in terms of market share, but off track it will also enable us to further use Formula One as a marketing platform for our parent company, Renault, to try to bring a bit of this association to our fans and our customers worldwide.

“Of course there’s also a great pride in reviving the Williams-Renault name. Together, we produced racing cars that are recognized for their technical innovation and it is still Renault’s most successful period in F1 to date. It’s a hugely exciting opportunity for both Renault and Williams.”

Frank Williams added: “We are delighted and excited by our new partnership with Renault. This reunites the F1 team with a leading car manufacturer and complements our new relationship with Jaguar. At the same time, we are grateful to Cosworth: they have been a fair and reliable partner both on and off the track for the past two years and we look forward to working with them across our business in the future.

“Our previous relationship with Renault was one of the most successful in Williams’ history but we will not allow ourselves to dwell too much on the past. We must look to the future and continue to re-build our on-track reputation, which I am hopeful that today’s announcement will help us to do.”

Source: SPEED

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