Red Bull Racing sign deal with Infiniti

[gridwalker]

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned this yet : http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsp ... 409120.stm

Red Bull's Renault engines will be renamed Infiniti this season in a move that will boost the world champion team's budget by at least £7m.

Infiniti - the premium brand of Japan's Nissan, part-owned by Renault - is using F1 to boost its global profile.

The engines will be the same, branding aside, but the plan means Red Bull will get their engines for free.

I guess that we're going to have to change the name of the thread now ...

[scuderiafan]

I'm probably going on a really tight rope here, but isn't Infiniti technically an American car company, and engines from Infiniti would be branded as American engines? Or do I have my facts wrong?

[djos]

I'm probably going on a really tight rope here, but isn't Infiniti technically an American car company, and engines from Infiniti would be branded as American engines? Or do I have my facts wrong?

Infiniti was created as a premium brand by Nissan to compete against Lexus and Acura in the US market but it is internationally available as a brand.

[747heavy]

I guess it depends on how you want to look at it.

AFAIK Infiniti is the luxury car brand of Nissan, similar to Lexus (Toyota) and/or Acura (Honda), with the main market beeing the USA (North America).

Djos beat me to the reply, mod´s feel free to delete the post please.

[Tamburello]

So are they going to be "Redbull Renault" still with Renault logos or "Redbull Infiniti" with the latter's logos on the car?

[bhall]

...or "Redbull Infiniti" with the latter's logos on the car?

Yes. That's sort of the whole point.

[FW17]

I'm probably going on a really tight rope here, but isn't Infiniti technically an American car company, and engines from Infiniti would be branded as American engines? Or do I have my facts wrong?

You sound like "USA is not capable of producing a F1 engine"

[Robbobnob]

has their ever been an american engine in F1??

not making any judgement myself

[ringo]

I guess they are taking a few pages out of the Megatron book.
It's kinda silly seeing as though infinity has nothing to do with the team at all, but what the heck, there are too many cars on the grid with the Renault name. Might as well chip in one of the sub brands.
I wonder how it's going to influence the sales of ininiti cars.

Sauber should change to Maserati now then.

[FW17]

has their ever been an american engine in F1??

not making any judgement myself

You forgot FORD

[djos]

Cosworth USA seems to be where most of the Automotive action is at these days and had developed and run the FORD Champ-Car 2.65ltr V8, turbo, Methanol engines for years - in their prime these put out well over 800bhp.

http://www.cosworthusa.com/

[bhall]

has their ever been an american engine in F1??

not making any judgement myself

You forgot FORD

...and they're the second winningest engine manufacturer in F1 history.

[Raptor22]

Ford Cosworth Engines were designed in England, with moeny from the parent company.
Ford USA has never officially been in F1. All their European motor racing activities was run by Ford Of Europe, using European money. Only the original DFV was bank rolled by Ford USA.

Infiniti is not a very recognisable brand in Europe. Since the cars are designed for the needs of the USA market they typically look big and out of place in Europe. Renault-Nissan would gain better traction for the Nissan brand but I guess placing Infiniti on th emap is what they're really after.
IMO its not a brand that really fits with what Red Bull is about.
Red Bull Nissan also has a much better ring to it.

However this is indicaive of what could happen should Volkswagen enter F1.

[Richard]

A bit more detail...

Ford engines in F1 were manufactured by Cosworth (in UK), starting in 1963

Cosworth did not become a subsidiary of Ford until 1998, and was returned to independent ownership in 2004.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosworth#S ... engine_use

There was one USA F1 engine to win a WDC, the 1966 Repco was based on an Oldsmobile block... albeit modified by Repco in Australia.

Finally, Ferrari have the most WDCs, not Ford Cosworth:

Code: Select all

Country    Engine     WDC

Italy      Ferrari    15
USA        Ford       13
France     Renault     8
Germany    Mercedes    6
Japan      Honda       5
UK         Climax      4
Luxembourg TAG         3
Italy      Alfa Romeo  2
Italy      Maserati    2
Australia  Repco       2
Germany    BMW         1
UK         BRM         1

Notes:
-TAG engines were made by Porsche in Germany
- The last 4 Mercedes WDC have used UK engines made by their UK-based subsidiary, Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines, known as Ilmor until 2005.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Fo ... #By_engine

[gridwalker]

Given that this is a simple rebranding of an existing engine, rather than the commissioning of an engine from an external manufacturer, I think that Benetton "Playlife" (aka Meccachrome) or Sauber "Petronas" (aka Ferrari) would be better analogies than "Ford" Cosworth, "TAG" Porsche or the Oldsmobile block that was mentioned earlier in the thread ...

Neither Benetton nor Sauber used the money from the brands that sponsored their engines to produce a unique powerplant, but simply used the rebadging to pay for a supply from an existing manufacturer. This is what Red Bull are doing now, so lets focus on the existing precedents and stay away from the US F1 powderkeg