“We can’t finance it”- Red Bull wants to freeze F1 engine to keep racing with Honda design

“We can’t finance it”- Red Bull’s chief has confessed that they want to freeze F1 engine to continue racing with Honda’s design.

Red Bull are in a conundrum to find an alternate for their power unit by 2022, as the known exit of Honda from Formula 1 has brought them under this situation.

Now, it has been revealed by Helmut Marko in an interview with Motorsport-Magazin that Red Bull wants to freeze F1 engine by the end of 2021 to continue with the designs by Honda.

“We are primarily working on replacing the Honda engine,” said Marko. “We are there and want to have a solution by the end of November.”

Marko said continuing to use their own engine was “the priority” for Red Bull. “However this can only be achieved if the engine and the surrounding area are completely frozen by the end of 2021 at the latest.”

“We can’t finance it”- Finding cheaper alternates.

If Red Bull and Alpha Tauri manage to use Honda designs for their use, they will also be able to maintain the technology sharing arrangement between the two teams, which allows them to reduce their spending.

However, Marko has confirmed that Red Bull is only prepared to maintain the current engines but cannot develop them, which will bring an immense expense for them.

“This complex engine is difficult enough if you only take care of maintenance and assembly,” he said. “We are currently investigating how this is possible from our side.

“But further development is not possible if you don’t have a technology centre like Sakura. We neither want to build that nor can we finance it. We don’t want to or can’t finance it.”

Despite this intricate challenge, Red Bull has preferred to manufacture their own engine, but it remains to be seen whether they will be able to pull it off or not.

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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