It was another dismal weekend of racing for Daniel Ricciardo at the British Grand Prix. He was forced to retire on lap 22 with electrical problems.
He more than anyone would have enjoyed the recent report from Autocar suggesting Red Bull Racing could cast Renault aside in favour of a new partnership with Aston Martin Racing. The most obvious benefit of such a union would be the connection Aston Martin has with AMG and the hope that Red Bull could use the seemingly unstoppable Mercedes-Benz engine.
Alas, any such hope has been dashed after Niki Lauda, Mercedes AMG F1 non-executive chairman, rubbished the rumour in no uncertain terms.
“There’s not even a discussion. No discussion at all,” implored Lauda. “I haven’t heard anything from them and we never talked about it. I have breakfast every morning with Helmut [Marko] so I should know.
“We never thought about it because we have four teams running our engines, so we don’t even have capacity.”
More damning comments came from an unnamed Mercedes AMG F1 spokesperson who slammed Red Bull’s treatment of current engine partner Renault: “Red Bull have been asking [for engines] since February 2014—they ring up every week! If you see how they’ve treated Renault they are not a good partner to have…”
Oh well Daniel, there’s always 2016. At least that’s the final year of the Renault contract. Fingers crossed for 2017, maybe?!
[Source: Motorsport.com]
UPDATE: It seems Niki and Toto Wolff, Mercedes AMG team principal, aren’t on the same page. Wolff telling Autosport that he’s “leaving the door open” to discussing a deal with Red Bull.
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