Renault team principal Cyril Abiteboul has revealed to be "sorry, but not sorry" about the fact their relationship with Red Bull Racing has ended after 12 years, as the Frenchman thinks the relationship had soured at the end.
Red Bull's four straight double championships at the start of this decade all came with the power of Renault, but since the turbo-hybrid era started back in 2014, Renault simply hasn't been up to speed. Reliability issues paired with a lack of straight-line speed have been the story of Red Bull for the last few years now.
With their contract at Renault being up at the end of 2018, the Bulls opted to switch to Honda for 2019 and 2020 to switch things up, ending their 12-year collaboration with Renault. A shame, but also a relief, Abiteboul explains.
“One of the reasons why we are sorry but not sorry to stop the relationship with Red Bull is simply because Red Bull was controlling our communication and we had to react,” the Frenchman told Motorsport.com.
"We were constantly on the back foot and, on many occasions, it was a communication that was suiting their purpose. And we are in a world where unfortunately the noise and communication is becoming a reality.
“Let’s be clear: our engine situation is still not where it needs to be but it is not as bad as maybe it looks from afar, and I can tell you it will be much better next year.
“There were some upsides with that relationship with Red Bull.
“And frankly if the story was to be written again, I would not change a word.
“I think it was great to have Red Bull in the last three years, which were really the years of startup of our own works team, because that team was capable of showing what the engine was capable of doing, for both the good and the bad.
“We know exactly where we are with chassis and engine. But I think we are now mature enough in our understanding of our strengths and weaknesses to be able to lose Red Bull and focus, control our communication, control our image, control our spend, control our investment, and our development strategy.
“We are in control and being in control was one of the reasons we wanted to return as a works team.”
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