There are stories kicking around at the moment suggesting that Red Bull could use Infiniti-branded engines at some point in the future. It is a great idea for the marketing people at Infiniti, but my sources at Renault say that it is a move that makes no sense at all for them. And that is entirely logical. Why would you spend a fortune on technology and the allow a subsidiary of a partner have the engines to put you in the shade? The answer is very simple: you wouldn’t. To make it worthwhile Renault would expect Renault to pay for the privilege and badging engines does not come cheap. It does make sense for the current botch to continue. Infiniti has title sponsorship of Red Bull Racing. This is great for Nissan’s luxury brand as it tries to make itself more cool and sexy. The buyers see the name “Infiniti” on the side of the Red Bull and they don’t care whether the engine is a Renault or a Lada. They are buying Infiniti because the brand is winning. That is good publicity. However, on a different level, Renault does not want to give away the cachet that comes with building F1 engines. That is all about technical prowess and is good for the Renault brand. It may not be neat and tidy but keeping both brands makes sense.
Renault is not averse to a bid of “brand engineering” when it is necessary. The company has recently announced that it is taking the Alpine name back to Le Mans this year. Alpine famously won the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1978 with a Renault-Alpine A442B, driven by Jean-Pierre Jaussaud and Didier Pironi. The brand has been revived this year thanks to the industrial alliance that has been signed with the Caterham Group, the aim being to build road-going sports cars for both brands, using the same platform, in the years ahead. Caterham is already busy brand-building in F1 and Alpine has now decided to get in on the act. It is a little different in that Caterham is actually building its own F1 cars, but Alpine will kick off rebranding an ORECA-Nissan run by Signatech. The Alpine-Nissan LMP2 will be raced by Pierre Ragues and Nelson Panciatici at Le Mans and in the three-hour European Le Mans Series races. The partnership may grow from that. Signatech is part of Philippe Sinault’s Signature Group, which has been successful in the past in Formula 3. It is already a manufacturer, building cars for the French Formula 4 series. It is not great stretch to imagine Signatech expanding to build proper Alpine racing sports cars.
joeblogsf1 
Correct me if I’m wrong Joe, but hasn’t re-branding of F1 engines always occurred with older spec engines, such as Ferrari / Acer, or when the manufacturer pulled out and it was supported by another company, BMW / Megatron? And perhaps you can answer what the true cost of developing the 2014 spec engine is.
What I could see is Infiniti branding for the ERS, paired with a Renault-branded engine. This gives Infiniti exposure as a technology partner, but Renault still gets exposure for the engine.
Realistically, rebranding is all over racing. Aston-Martin branded Lolas, Lotus-branded Lolas and Renaults, Mercedes-branded Brawn-branded Honda branded BAR branded Tyrrells, nissan-branded deltawings with nissan-branded engines from RML that were previously chevrolet-branded touring car engines… Headache inducing!
Ilmors and mecedesess?
This issue gets to the heart of why motor manufacturers get into F1. I’ve never really understood how Renault has ever really benefitted from F1 brand association given they are a mainstream manufacturer. It never worked for Toyota, nor latterly at least, Ford. Honda’s 1980s success presumably yielded something against expectations, but unless Acura becomes a global brand as Nissan with Infiniti, it makes no sense. Mercedes, BMW and Ferrari you can see why, but the big hole is VAG. Bottom line is F1 engines need an upmarket brand. Or so it seems?
One obvious issue with Renault is the gulf between their undoubted prowess in Formula One and the image and reputation of the cars they actually make and sell to us. More like HRT frankly.
With the exception of the RenaultSport models. Silk purses compared to the regular Renault Sow’s Ears.
It did work for Honda throughout the span of time that it competed in F1, save for the less than stellar last few years when they were a works team. Honda’s best reputation has been for building excellent engines, with good durability, and common sense. (for the most part they did so with just 4 and 6 cylinders, and sought performance without just sticking a turbo on it) although they weren’t the most advanced or on the edge, they don’t build too much junk. (they did have suitable handling dynamics in cars from the crx, nsx, s2000 and civic si models). they definitely had boosts from arguably this within their home market.
Consider honda in comparison to the other Japanese marques (Nissan, Toyota, Mitsubishi, and Fuji-(Izusu,subaru) all have trucks and a wider vehicle range, but honda as the smaller corporation has been quite capable in growing the brand and executing their vision with few real clunkers.
To make it worthwhile Renault would expect Renault [surely you mean “Infinifi” here ?] to pay for the privilege.
Surely you mean “pedant”?
With next years engine regulations I guess, Renault would gladly create the link between a F1 and a Clio RS.
In all my experience I have only met a single Infiniti owner who cared about F1. He had sold his 328 quicker than expected and bought a G35 as a driver while he waited for his ordered Porsche to arrive.
I expect there’s many of them in the US. That is Infiniti owners who couldn’t give a damn about F1..
The current branding is so messy that it doesn’t work for Infinity, and given Renaults comments last week, it appears it doesn’t work for them either. To slap an Infinity sticker on the side of the car might make someone aware of the brand, but it adds no value to it, no depth and if anything just comes across as crass and tacky that they are “buying” values. Its the same as Pepe Jeans, no one atributes the team winning to their choice of trousers.
If they made a bit of a fuss about doing some R&D of their KERS in Japan, and the engine in France, they could make the best out of both brands. “Powered by Renault, boosted by Infinity”, a demo at both sites simultaneously, branded KERS system in the same way as the engine plate is the real element that adds credibility to a manufacturer then people would believe it.
That’s actually an excellent idea. Branding the KERS systems – why has no-one thought of that before? It’s like leaving money on the table in a deal or not bothering to find a sponsor for a neglected panel on an F1 car – it’s totally daft not to use the second most important power element of the racing car as a branding platform… Particularly when many of the teams are owned by manufacturers with other brands to promote – Powered by Ferrari, Boosted by Lancia / Alfa Romeo / Maserati etc…
Teams could even sell branding rights to other companies; Williams uses a Renault engine, but if they’ve developed the KERS inhouse themselves then unless there’s a clause in their engine contract prohibiting it they could tout that out as a white-label product to whomever they liked…or simply cut another deal for a Renault partner like Nissan to brand the KERS…
Genuinely an awesome idea…
So what about the persistent rumor floating about that Red Bull may follow McLaren’s lead and switch over to Honda in the future ?
Something IMO is definitely getting a bit weird over Renault way lately ( what with their conferring favorite son status to Lotus F1 … the reemergence of Alpine in conjunction w/Caterham etc ) as well as with Red Bull Racing and their relationship w/Renault/Nissan/Infiniti .
Also …. after all the hype and hoopla what ever became of Lotus F1 supposedly gaining Coca Cola as a sponsor ? Sheesh …. all the noise the rest of the media made about that last November and here we are …. no Coca Cola branding anywhere to be seen on the Lotus’s
I have not heard that one.
If you do some homework you will find that Burn is a Coca-Cola drink.
Didn’t know that ( don’t drink soft drinks … don’t care ) but placing ‘ Burn ‘ on the car doesn’t nearly have the cache or importance of placing the most recognizable brand in the World .. Coca Cola on it … taking the significance/importance of the sponsorship down an entire notch . ” Much Ado about Nothing ” pretty much sums that one up marketing wise . The Red Bull moving to Honda rumor has been circulating from the BBC all the way to the US motorsports press .Don’t know if there’s an ounce of truth to it …. but with all the strangeness at Red Bull .. complaints on behalf of Renault … Infiniti re-branding etc I wouldn’t completely discount the possibility either
A touch of confusion maybe..? The McLaren / Honda was written about on Red Bull International’s website with quotes from BBC and Autosport, but the story wasn’t about Red Bull and Honda in F1
Interesting rumour this one, and one that potentially makes some sense. Honda and Red Bull already have decent relationships in the world of motorsport (e.g. MotoGP), but not in F1.
I think McLaren and Red Bull would want some very serious reassurances about the Honda engine before committing though. A decent engine is an integral part of a front running car, and McLaren have got stung before with this, e.g. Peugeot. Additionally Honda’s track record in F1 engine development isn’t great. When they last had V10’s out on track they were in the order of 40bhp down on the Mercedes and Ferrari powered cars, and not as reliable either.
Coca Cola don’t actually need to advertise themselves any more, in fact I would say that you could strap F1 on a Coke bottle to advertise the series. (about time F1 was promoted)
But the Infinity thing seems very Japanese to me. I used to work for a Japanese company and was caught out by the culture differences a few times. It seemed back then that every Japanese aspired to have something unique, special, but they all wanted to have exactly the same! Conformity was a matter of prime importance, as was status.
But do you think this will apply also to Ferrari? Would it make sense for them to revive their brand Alfa Romeo, which is not present in current motorsports, in re-badging one of their customer engines? I think a Toro Rosso-Lancia was conceived some years ago. I suppose it would be far cheaper than to start a genuine racing project.
Given that the next generation Alfa Romeo road car engines are being developed in conjunction with Ferrari and Alfa Romeo are trying to break into new markets such as China, I could definitely see this happen.
Torro Rosso would have been a good fit being Italian too, but as they are moving to Renault how about Sauber getting them.
“Renault would expect Renault to pay for the privilege” – sounds like a Murray Walkerism 🙂
It’s 35 years since Pironi won at Le Mans? I’m feeling old…
Joe,
Unless I was already favorably impressed by the Caterham brand and in the market for a road car, Caterham’s present F1 performance would not encourage me to buy. I would be encouraged, however, if they became a consistent mid-field team this year, but is that likely?
Alternatively, Caterham must be betting on turning things around with next year’s new specifications. Do you think they have in place, right now in their factory, the organization and other resources that can make the necessary difference in 2014?
~ Chris
Joe, I wonder why Fiat don’t rebrand Ferrari customer engines as Alfa or Maserati. They want to increase Maserati sales from 6 000 per year to 50 000, while trying to relaunch Alfa in the U.S. Do they get any beneficial publicity for Ferrari from them, or only economies of scale?
Not a bad idea, honestly, as it might save Ferrari a little embarrassment the next time they get upstaged by a Sauber, as they often were last year. But can you imagine having to read out “Scuderia Toro Rosso Maserati?” Perhaps it should be a rule that F1 team names have to have fewer syllables than the engines have cylinders.
It would be nice to have the Alfa Romeo and Maserati names back in F1. Along with Mercedes, both were successful in the 1950’s era. Personally, I like how “Sauber-Maserati” sounds; what about ‘Marussia-Alfa Romeo’? (or Marussia-Lancia, Toro Rosso-Alfa Romeo, or just simply buying the team and re-branding it?)
I guess that the impact of the customer team engine name isn’t that great at the moment (with such a low amount of engine manufacturers and the pre-2014 regs) to justify putting a different brand name in without simply diluting it. With such a focus on Scuderia Ferrari, I think there’s not much room left for their customer engines to be noticed.
I fear Lancia is not long for this world, maybe in Italy itself. The Crysler brand should be stronger in the rest of the world.
I was told yesterday they currently have a rule inside FIAT that only Ferrari can “run” F1. But rebadging would only be an advanced type of sponsorship as the engine technically remains the same and not a F1 project? So “Toro Rosso” or “Sauber”-Alfa Romeo” should be possible and would make much sense imo.
What you say all makes sense, but it makes me miss the days when we had more genuine variety on the technical side – chassis and engine – rather than a relatively homogenous field of cars with different branding.
Still, the new engines look promising…roll on Honda, Porsche et al
Unfortunately the new engine regs are very restrictive and do not leave much room for innovation. Though I can see one large loophole but no doubt it will be closed soon.
Dont forget Renault past brand name engines in F1: Supertec, Playlife and Mecachrome
That was a long time ago and at a time when Renault had pulled out of the sport officially. Thus it is hardly relevant to the current discussion.
Interesting Joe, I see (thanks to your insights above) Tony F building the Caterham brand with dual platforms with Renault and both hopefully being successful. If he was left alone when he had Lotus, it would not be in the sorry state that it’s in and it would be looking at a bright future. Instead the wuck fits are picking over the bones.
They can brand away all they like. I’m still (as a 34 year old bloke with money to spend on exciting cars (well, some money, but I assume I roughly fit their marketing demographic..) never buying an Infiniti. They can win ten world championships, i’m still never buying one. Saw one on the M40 last week, never seen one on the road before.. as rare as rocking horse s*** 🙂
Joe, I realize that you’re probably still traveling, but I think the whole Infiniti/Red Bull connection is a smart plan for Renault. Outside of Western Europe does anyone think of Renault as a performance car, or for that same manner how many people view Renault as a particularly sporty car/as opposed to Ferrari, M/B-AMG, (going back a few years BMW, Jaguar, or even Honda seemed to have had more sporting variants than Renault for the most part (ie NSX, S2000)
Here in the US there is probably more negative association with Renault than with FIAT with it’s (Fix It Again Tony) reputation. With Alliances, Encores and dreadful LeCar, it is wise to try to enhance a familial brand in North America where it doesn’t have a presence outside of the Nissan (including Inifinti) side of the family.
It seems as though marketing Infiniti is smart, because they are using the brand in markets where Renault is not that strong, or has no presence. (sure they sell Renaults in Korea and Russia) But why not utilize a more luxury/performance marque within the company profile to enhance the company in expanding markets such as the Middle East, Russia, China and Korea.
As I said before aside from the Alpines, and more Rally/WRC type hot-hatch econoboxes, Renault doesn’t seem to have a performance profile, so why not highlight one which does?
You know who isn’t mentioned here? Williams. Surely the Lotus/Red Bull debate leaves Williams as possible premiere squad too? Or is Toto Wolff going to get a good Merc deal for them? I kind of see the 2014 engines as thus:
Ferrari & AMG Merc – factory
Sauber – Ferrari
Lotus/RBR/STR/Caterham – Renault
FI/Williams/McLaren – Merc
Marussia – Honda (McLaren to join in 2015)
Look at it logically, Honda can iron out tech & reliability with McLaren b team before Woking goes for wins in 2015!
You think of the Spirit-Honda solution? Could make sense as officially testing seems to be restricted also after 2013.
“Marussia – Honda (McLaren to join in 2015)”
Honda have already stated that they won’t have engines available until 2015 so how would Marussia have them in 2014? I would bet that Marussia will get Ferrari engines which is why Bianchi was signed.
Do you see Renault buying Caterham and coming back in F1 as a manufacturer now that they have place Cyril Abiteboul as team boss and got into bed with them on the road car side, it seems to make sense,whats your thoughts joe.
No