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Question of the Day: Which major South African city would you least like to live in?
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cr@zydude
Honorary Master
The plan is for Frod to supply Red Bull and the "insert sponsors' names" team. I don't know if it's exclusive, but for 2026 it's just those 2 teams planned.
thestaggy
Honorary Master
Ford isn't building the engines.
Red Bull Powertrains (RBPT) is going to develop and build the engines with Ford providing ''technical expertise and resources'', with most of their focus on the electric side of the powertrain.
To answer @Mike Hoxbig, this is an exclusive Red Bull-Ford partnership and by extension the junior team will use the same PUs.
EDIT: This reminds me of what Sauber and Petronas wanted to do in the 90s. In a partnership, Sauber and Petronas established 'Sauber Petronas Engineering' (SPE) in 1996 and licensed the rights to begin fabricating and assembling year-old Ferrari engines, rebadging them as 'Petronas'. The plan was to begin building their own engines from 1999, using the knowledge gained from working with the Ferrari units. Didn't work out in the end, as they carried on just building licensed Ferrari engines until BMW bought them in 2005 and closed SPE down.
Of interest, SPE did end up developing the Petronas FP1 superbike as well as a production car engine for Proton.
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Has RBPT actually built anything yet?
Well, they can only go up lol. Stake / team kick sauber / whatever they call themselves are a pointless team on the grid, literally. Like the old Minardi. A lot will be riding on the Audi brand, but what really concerns me is the Qatar purchase...
I doubt they're going to pull another "Red Bull buys Minardi" here, but who knows.
thestaggy
Honorary Master
Not yet. The 2026 engine will be their baby. Current engine is Honda-based, although Honda stopped developing the combustion unit at the end of 2022.
Red Bull have been putting things in place for 2026. Notably harvesting engineers from AMG/Mercedes and then establishing their base of operations (they have built a fully-fledged engine development and production facility at their HQ).
thestaggy
Honorary Master
Don't disrespect Minardi like that. Minardi actually tried and for a team with barely any resources, they were noted for their professionalism and passion. This green garbage at the back of the grid looks like one of those fake teams from an unlicensed F1 game and appears to function like one.
I agree with you there.. they are actually a joke atm. "Will they even score a point this season"
Not if the race director is red flagging every wet race... bah. Let's hope the new race director has heard of full wets.
Mike Hoxbig
Honorary Master
If the money stays the same and they stay 3rd, Perez brings a net $12m from where they were last year. If the prize pool increases, this gets diluted, making the case to boot him stronger...
with kitkat now being a F1 sponsor you have to wonder if perez will keep that sponsorship.
and you have to wonder how much of that 30mil he brings is from kitkat alone. wont be all of it, but if its say 2mil then that 12 mentioned becomes 10.
and we know his main sponsor would be happy to sponsor any LATAM driver, so he could swap to Boreteletto or Colepinto if checo retires. so who knows how secure his sponsorship money actually is
and you have to wonder how much of that 30mil he brings is from kitkat alone. wont be all of it, but if its say 2mil then that 12 mentioned becomes 10.
and we know his main sponsor would be happy to sponsor any LATAM driver, so he could swap to Boreteletto or Colepinto if checo retires. so who knows how secure his sponsorship money actually is
The other thing to consider is that the worse you do as a team the less likely you will keep the big sponsors happy because they pay much higher fee's due to your place as a winning team. I am pretty sure, they lower down the order you are, the less a sponsor is willing to pay?
thestaggy
Honorary Master
It would take years of terminal decline - think Brabham, Lotus, Tyrell, Williams, McLaren - for Red Bull to lose the brand value they have established. And even if they finish 3rd in the WCC, they still have Max. They're still winners.
Just as an example, Rauch and Siemens have sponsored Red Bull since 2005. Rauch has been on their side mirrors since the very first Red Bull hit the track. Their number of partners has steadily grown over the years if you look at those early Red Bulls and compare them to now, and this includes the lean years between Seb's titles and now Max.
I have no doubt Perez will still be there.
quovadis
Honorary Master
Add in more wind tunnel time the lower down a team finishes. Could be very valuable to Red Bull in fixing the issues which this car has had.
Sinbad
Honorary Master
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That's an interesting thought.... Deliberately chuck the team performance to get wind tunnel time for the 2026 car?
It's very tinfoil hat. With how sponsor rich Red Bull is and the fact that they reported massive profits recently, the financial loss by not winning the championship is negligible to them in my opinion.
So the question would be, because money can't buy wind tunnel time, is losing the championship worth the extra time? A normal person would say no, because sport is all about winning.
But how much tunnel surgery does that car really need?
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