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.
That will save the team 8m Euros (£6.8m) a year, the cost of all customer engine supplies in Formula 1.
It is not yet clear whether Renault/Nissan will provide further financial support for Red Bull, but even if the deal just provides for free engines it will be a significant boost to the team.
It means that money – estimated to be about 4-5% of their total budget – can be freed up to be spent in other areas, potentially increasing performance.
Red Bull had been the only title-contending team who had to pay for their engines. The price for such deals is fixed at 8m Euros by an agreement between all F1 engine manufacturers through the teams’ umbrella group Fota.
Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel won the drivers’ title in 2010, becoming the youngest champion in F1 history, while the team also won the constructors’ championship.
The team will start the new season as favourites – their new car, the RB7, has looked the class of the field so far in pre-season testing.
Red Bull’s closest rivals look set to be Ferrari, who saw Fernando Alonso narrowly lose out in the drivers’ title battle to Sebastian Vettel last season.
The Red Bull-Infiniti deal is expected to be announced officially at the Geneva Motor Show on Tuesday.
Nissan and Renault are trying to boost Infiniti’s presence in a highly competitive market, in which its rivals are giants such as Audi, BMW, Jaguar and Mercedes.
The two companies have been in partnership since 1999, with France’s Renault holding a 44.3% shareholding in Nissan and the Japanese company owning 15% of Renault.
