Home » Sport » Five to twelve for Red Bull: which engine will Verstappen get in 2022? | NOW

Five to twelve for Red Bull: which engine will Verstappen get in 2022? | NOW

According to a self-imposed deadline, Red Bull has to decide before the end of November with which bike the Max Verstappen team will start in 2022. December is approaching and there is no white smoke yet. Who will succeed Honda?

2022 still seems a long way off, but there is definitely pressure on the boiler. After next season, the rules in Formula 1 will be thoroughly overhauled. The cars are being changed a lot and the sooner designer Adrian Newey knows which engine will come into his creation, the better.

Honda announced in early October that it would stop Formula 1 after 2021. So Red Bull had to look for a solution. The racing stable always rides with external engine suppliers, of which three are left in the premier class. But those three options are not very likely.

Option one: major competitor Mercedes supplies an engine to Red Bull

Mercedes does not want to think about the return of their strong power source in the back of the potent Red Bull chassis and is keeping its distance. The mere idea that Lewis Hamilton will be beaten by Verstappen in a Red Bull Mercedes in 2022 gives the management in Stuttgart fierce dreams. The chance that that deal will ever get off the ground is simply very small, or rather: nil.

Option two: Red Bull with ‘cheater’ Ferrari engine

Ferrari doesn’t exactly have the strongest engine on the grid right now. This is the result of the ‘cheating gate’ at the end of 2019. Now in Maranello, work is being done on a new power source, but the development possibilities are limited.

The chance that this new engine will be a direct hit is not very great. So Red Bull would take a huge gamble. Quite apart from the question whether Ferrari likes the fact that the driver they “cheated” last year accused goes out with their product.

Option three: return to Renault despite clashing divorce in 2017

Renault was the regular supplier of Red Bull for many years and did so very successfully. However, since Formula 1 switched to hybrid engines, the French have been struggling. Not enough horsepower, unreliable; Verstappen can discuss it extensively.

Recently, the horsepower is a bit better, so Renault is not even a very crazy option. On the other hand, the divorce after 2017 would not have been out of place in a soap opera. There is a lot of old pain that probably gets in the way of a spontaneous renewed friendship.

Nevertheless, Red Bull and Renault can be condemned to each other: the engine suppliers are contractually obliged to supply a team that is without engines. The chosen one is then the manufacturer with the fewest customer teams. That would currently be Renault, because it has no more customers after this season. McLaren will switch from Renault to Mercedes engines next year.

Who will drive which customer bike in 2021?

  • Mercedes: Aston Martin (huidige Racing Point), Williams, McLaren
  • Ferrari: Alfa Romeo, Haas
  • Honda: Red Bull, Alpha Tauri
  • Renault: No customer teams



Option four: Continue with the Honda engine without a Honda

It is clear that Red Bull wants to avoid the above scenario (being forced to go back to Renault). Partly for this reason, Red Bull is working on option four: to continue the Honda project itself.

For this to be successful, Helmut Marko and Christian Horner still have to put a few puzzle pieces in the right place. Red Bull must first convince Honda to hand over their ‘IP’ (Intellectual Property), or loosely translated: the knowledge about their engines, to Red Bull. This seems like the smallest bump on the road: Honda can not do much with a Formula 1 engine and focuses entirely on electric drive.

Perhaps Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz should pull the wallet, but his team will be keen to get this project off the ground. If that succeeds, Red Bull is not there yet, because it does not have the know-how or facilities to build and develop engines. An external partner is needed. This could include Cosworth, which has a lot of experience with Formula 1 engines (albeit not with recent technology).

AVL is also mentioned for the continuation of the Honda project

The Austrian company AVL is also frequently mentioned. That has no experience with racing, but is a much larger company and (probably) has the knowledge of the technology that Formula 1 currently uses for its engines.

Assuming that a good partner is found, one final problem arises: To what extent are manufacturers allowed to develop their Formula 1 engines? Red Bull foresees the ideal scenario that there will be an ‘engine freeze’ from 2022. This means that the performance of the engines should no longer be tinkered with.

In this way, Red Bull knows that it is assured of a capable power source until 2025 (when these engine regulations expire), without having to spend tons of money on the development of the engine. After all, Red Bull realizes that their ‘engine partner’ cannot keep up with the car manufacturers if they continue to develop. These conversations are still ongoing.

Formula 1 itself also has an interest in this project

The question now is whether and when Marko and Horner will be able to complete their puzzle. Then it becomes clear with which engine Verstappen, who still has a contract with Red Bull until the end of 2023, will start in 2022. That decision is also important for the future of Formula 1 as a whole, because energy drink manufacturer Red Bull has two teams in the premier class with Red Bull and AlphaTauri.

But Red Bull’s future in Formula 1 is certainly not set in stone, especially when it is forced to race with an engine that it cannot win. And a winning bike is not exactly within reach for the time being.

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