Wolff hopeful Red Bull remain in F1 regardless of engine situation
F1 News
- GPblog.com
Red Bull and Honda will part ways from 2022 and it is still not clear which engine will then be used in the Red Bull and Alpha Tauri cars. Red Bull's preference is to take over the Honda engine under its own management.
Freezing engines
If Red Bull does indeed take over the Honda engine, it can only do so if Formula 1 freezes the development of the engines. Red Bull cannot afford to continue to upgrade the Honda engine in the way that other manufacturers can. Mercedes are in favour of this plan, but Ferrari and Renault are not.
Toto Wolff believes that Red Bull can be successful even without freezing the engines. "It seems Honda has done a good job in bringing updates to the power unit. There is some good stuff in the pipeline, and they're still going to be around next year, giving it all to be successful in the championship," he told Motorsport.com .
New engines
Moreover, the Honda engine would only need to be used for a short period of time. "In the mid-term, we are going to innovate, all of us, to work on a new engine concept that could be introduced as early as 2024 or2025. That's where the attention of all of us is going to shift," said the Mercedes team boss.
Red Bull in Formula 1
If the Honda proposal does not succeed, Red Bull can always become a customer of another engine provider, but Wolff understands that this is not first choice. "And I understand that they don't want to go into a spending war with the other manufacturers."
Whatever happens with the engines, Wolff hopes Red Bull should remain in Formula 1. "Red Bull is a very important brand for Formula 1 and we should do everything to keep the two teams in Formula 1."