Where does the future of Red Bull and Renault lie?

Despite a strong 2-3-4 performance for Renault powered cars, Red Bull isn’t expecting any good results at Monza and Spa, two fast pace tracks where Mercedes and Ferrari are expected to dominate. Tracks like Hungary and Monaco, with more corners than straights, suit the current Red Bull package.

Strong rumors point at Red Bull looking for Mercedes to power their cars as soon as 2016 and Honda to power the sister team, Toro Rosso. Plagued with a low spec-d engine, Red Bull’s season has been pretty awful till now and the double podium in Hungary was something refreshing and probably the only good for the team, this season.

Both Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo have suffered multiple penalties owing to engine changes. No new updates in terms of performance or reliability is expected for the Renault Power Unit until Sochi, which leaves Red Bull heavily frustrated since none of the updates for the car will be of any good without improvements in the Power Unit.

Red Bull has been pretty vocal of how Renault has disappointed them this year. Helmut Marko said that they were promised a lot from the French engine supplier. Despite having  a contract for 2016, Red Bull will break free from Renault and their lousy engine development for next year. Early rumors pointed to a possible return of Aston Martin  to Formula One as a title sponsor with Red Bull, which could very well bring  the Mercedes engines to power their cars.

Driven by two heavily talented racers, Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo, the RB11 is aerodynamically very strong but suffers from the lack of horse power from the power unit. If they can somehow get Mercedes on board with them, Red Bull might be able to get back to their glory days from 2010-2013 starting next year.

Meanwhile, Renault is looking for other options to stay in the sport, most eminent being buying Lotus back. Team Lotus are also in the middle of a financial turmoil having faced a winding up petition last month. Both Lotus and Renault are pretty vocal about their current talks and agreements. Current rumors point out that a decision will be taken as early as next week.

“Nothing is done as of yet, but we are much further down the road and we are much closer to a conclusion and a decision,” Renault Sport F1 managing director Cyril Abiteboul told ESPN.

“We are much clearer on why we want to be in F1 and also we are much clearer on the value of the sport and the sort of cost and budget we think we should allow.

“We have been in talks with several teams and there is no secret about that.

“There have been many different types of speculation, one day it’s Lotus, one day it’s Sauber and the next day it’s Toro Rosso.

“There have been others and there will be others. It’s part of the option we are looking at and with Lotus we need to be extremely careful because it’s no secret that the team has been struggling financially.

“We need to wonder about the collateral damage associated in particular to the people outside of an organisation associated to the financial difficulties.”

As published in Autosport, Renault is also withdrawing its support from the Formula Renault series. The championship is among the most important series for budding Formula One drivers and certainly without Renault, the championship’s future is doubtful.