Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko has revealed Mercedes boss Toto Wolff blocked a deal that would have seen the marque supply its rivals with a Formula 1 power unit.
Mercedes customer engine deals have been all the rage ever since the hybrid era of F1 ushered in an era of dominance for The Silver Arrows from 2014.
Even today, the Renault Group, which has been on the back foot in the power department ever since F1 went hybrid, is seeking to ditch its engine in favour of a Mercedes tie-in.
Red Bull suffered at the hands of Renault in the early days of the hybrid era before switching to Honda, but Marko revealed that the Milton Keynes-based outfit had neared a deal with Mercedes before Wolff put a stop to it.
“When 2014, the new engine rules came, our engine supplier unfortunately couldn’t make a competitive engine,” Marko said on the Inside Line F1 podcast.
“And we tried… Even so there was quite a big rivalry with Mercedes, and also our boss [Dietrich Mateschitz] was not a big fan.
“I said, ‘Listen, with our engine, we can’t motivate people anymore, because everybody knows this is an engine you can’t win [with].
“So we had a deal with Mercedes, a handshake deal with Lauda, which was not supported by Toto, so the deal didn’t happen.”
It’s hardly surprising that Wolff put a stop to the deal given the fact that Red Bull still picked up race wins with the underpowered Renault power unit.
In 2014, Daniel Ricciardo was the only non-Mercedes winner with three victories and the team picked up a further nine race victories ahead of its switch to un-fancied Honda power for 2019.
“Honda, at that stage, failed to be competitive with McLaren, but I had some insider information what they are planning to do,” Marko said.
“So we said, ‘Yes, we go ahead, we take this risk’, which I believed it wasn’t a risk, because I knew how much they spent on dynos, you know, AVL is in Graz, and so I knew what they spent.
“So they were serious about it.
“So when we changed engine, which at that moment was, how did Alonso say? F2 style power, something like that, so we always took brave decisions. So a little bit, no risk, no fun.”
Red Bull’s next “brave” decision is its impending switch to powering its cars with its own bespoke power unit through the recently formed Red Bull Powertrains division in partnership with Ford.
From 2026, Red Bull will be a fully works entry from top to bottom and Marko spoke of the task being undertaken to build its engine.
“I think the next benchmark is we will have our own engine, which is an enormous, enormous project from the financial side, as also from the management side,” Marko said.
“So we will be, yeah, we will be now a real manufacturer. So that will start in 2026 and in the future, our focus will be on winning races. Yes, winning races with our own engine and make always a benchmark.
“You know, as in the beginning, we do it differently, and that should be also the aim for the future.”
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