Monday 9th November 2015

Motorsport on Monday: 09/11/2015

Red Bull's Renault block buster, Stoddart retires, MotoGP thrills and fizzles

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Following Red Bull Racing bosses' rather bizarre strategy of telling Renault where to stick its engines without actually signing a replacement, it seems Renault may partly be coming to the team's rescue - in one of the more eyebrow-raising turn of events yet.

The plan, it seems, is for Red Bull to buy Renault engines, to which a combustion system and ERS designed by its engine guru Mario Illien will be bolted on. So, we'll have two Renault engines running in 2016: the team's own unit (likely in its own-branded car, once the takeover of Lotus is complete) and the Red Bull Renault, likely branded Infiniti.

Confused yet?

It adds much fascination to 2016, and a surprise 'battle of the engineers' element. Same engine, different heads and tech: who can make a better Renault engine, Renault or its customer? Mind you, it's clearly Red Bull's last throw of the dice, after getting so desperate it was even reportedly considering Honda engines.

For the sanity of Dietrich Mateschitz, Ron Dennis reportedly declined this.

F1 engines misfire
The slightly shambolic 2014 F1 engine regulations, which sees a customer supply costing a breathtaking 20m euros yet Mercedes-Benz saying it still loses a "substantial" amount of money on every engine it sells, were a 'mistake' F1 president Jean Todt has admitted.

You can say that again. Teams are being put out of business by the cost of their engine supply, manufactures are losing money and thus facing questions from the boardroom, the regulations themselves are written apparently to maintain the status quo of coincidental dominance by one supplier, F1 fans still moan that they don't sound as good as the V8s, Bernie says we should scrap it all and just dust off the V8s, Red Bull's daft decisions are not mitigated by rules that say manufacturers (namely, Honda) must supply a minimum number of teams... Even the 1.6-litre V6 hybrid era's biggest fans (fan?) must admit things are not ideal.

And now, with events such as Ferrari's veto of plans to reduce the customer supply cost to 12m euros (well, if you're already losing cash, why would you agree to lose even more?), it seems the status quo is set in stone. An unhappy situation for all seems set to continue. But for one outside chance.

Bernie, can you sort it, please?

Susie Wolff retires
Suzie Wolff (nee Stoddart), the only woman to have driven an F1 car during a Grand Prix weekend in the last two decades, has announced her retirement after 15 seasons in motorsport. The former Formula Renault UK and Mercedes DTM driver, who's been Williams' development driver since 2012 (and 2015 test driver), will hang up her helmet at the end of the season.

Fittingly, Wolff will retire from motorsport after the Race of Champions, being held at London's Olympic Stadium on 20-21 November.

Speaking of which...

Race of Champions
Yup, RoC is in Britain for 2015, to show London 2012 what it was missing out on (perhaps). The glittering spectacle to sort of find the best (or luckiest) champion of champions (even though actually being a champion doesn't appear to be a prerequisite) will see racers including Jenson Button, Romain Grosjean, Felipe Massa, Nico Hulkenberg, Daniel Ricciardo, Sebastien Vettel, 'Sir' Tom Kristensen, David Coulthard and Jason Plato compete.

Button is teaming up with Alex Buncombe, with Plato's partner to be confirmed. Jenson's already talking up the chances of a British nation's victory in the challenge, although it's actually DC who, along with Grosjean, is the only former RoC champion thus far competing this year.

The cars this year don't look bad, either: Mercedes-AMG GT S, Ariel Atom Cup, Radical SR3 RSX, Euro NASCAR, various bike-engined buggies, the RoC Car itself and, of course, the KTM X-Bow. Tickets cost from £25: surely it's worth checking out?

Rossi doesn't do it
PH2 will cover a thrilling MotoGP final round at Valencia in detail, but it's worth mentioning Lorenzo's win of both the race and the title here too. Largely because of all the disquiet surrounding it. Soap operas have nothing on this and it's certainly unlike anything we've seen in F1, NASCAR or BTCC.

Just as with Prost and Senna though, it does beg the question: who would you like to have seen won the MotoGP crown in 2015?

[Images: LATPhoto]

[iwantcheese5]

What about the Putrajaya ePrix? Some great entertainment, especially with Robin Frijns crabbing over the finish line in 3rd.

[HorneyMX5]

And no mention of the Race of Remembrance this weekend. Poor show PH.

[j1mmyb0y72]

Stodart retires !?!? - did I miss something ? I only see Susie Wolf mentioned ?

[smilo996]

Red Bull seem to be making life infinitely more difficult for themselves.

A divorce from Renault buy still living in the same house. Presumably if Red Bull's engine outperforms Renault's Renault will be more than happy.

[HLS30]

I was surprised by the level of competition at the electric cars race. All they need to supplant F1 is to add a V10 soundtrack at 20,000 rpm and it would kill the hardcore set. The spectacle of a race car dog-legging it at speed was amazing.