Christian Horner reveals Red Bull and Ferrari almost struck engine deal

It’s a well-known fact that Red Bull Racing will take control of their engine making from the 2022 season. The energy drink-owned team have previously relied on deals with existing manufacturers to supply them with engines. However, when current supplier Honda announced they would leave the sport, it left Red Bull short of options. The relationship with previous supplier Renault was famously strained. But in a recent conversation, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner revealed they almost struck a deal with another competitor – Ferrari.

Ultimately the deal fell through because Red Bull were reluctant to accept all of Ferrari’s integrations with the new regulations on their way. Yet it is worth noting because a deal between the two teams would have normally seemed unthinkable.

“The most natural thing was to have a discussion with the existing suppliers,” Horner told F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast.

“Mercedes was a very short conversation, Toto (Wolff) obviously wasn’t particularly keen on that one. In fact Renault, their aspirations of a team didn’t include supplying a team like Red Bull.

“The most willing was Ferrari. We had some exploratory discussions. But to be a customer, so to have to accept all of the integration, particularly with the new regulations that are coming, would be a massively hard pill to swallow.”

Would have liked Honda to stay in F1 longer: Christian Horner

After the Ferrari deal fell through, Horner said the team decided to take control of making their own engines. However, there was something else that was key to this deal – a freeze on power unit development under the regulations from 2022.

“That’s when we started to explore the possibility, ‘OK, how do we take on this challenge in a Red Bull manner?’ and see if we can put a deal together with Honda for the foreseeable future.

“The freeze was fundamental to that, otherwise we wouldn’t have had the capacity to develop an engine.

“To take that step, and it’s a big step and a bold step, to take control of our own destiny as an engine supplier and bring the whole lot under one roof in Milton Keynes, it would make us the only team other than Ferrari to have the whole lot within one facility.”

Horner also admitted he would have liked Honda to be in the sport longer than they were. However, he also adds that the team will maintain some sort of relationship with the Japanese car makers.

“We’d have loved them to stay longer,” Horner said.

“We’re just about to go under a freeze for the next three years, so costs are more controlled. They’ve worked very hard to get themselves into a competitive position.

“But certainly next year, we’re looking to maintain some form of relationship. Obviously I’m not going to go into the details of the discussions, but we’re hoping to have as of a landing as we can.

“It’s an enormous challenge to start from scratch as an engine builder.”