Renault resigned to fact no one wants their inferior engines

Abiteboul resigned to fact no one wants their inferior engines

Renault team boss Cyril Abiteboul has said that they are “not desperate" to supply engines to other teams after their only customer McLaren have opted to use Mercedes engines again from 2021.

“We know the team arrangements. Lots of long-standing relationships were already in existence when we went back into the sport," Abiteboul said to Crash.net.

“Williams, Racing Point, they are very loyal partners to Mercedes. And the same for Haas [with Ferrari], Red Bull, Toro Rosso and Honda.

“We’ll look at opportunities. We are not desperate. We will only jump on one opportunity if it’s a real opportunity or a possible strategic partnership."

With Mercedes, Ferrari and Honda all powering several teams from 2021 Abiteboul admitted that Renault may be a bit “naive" in not influencing control other teams they supply engines too.

“Maybe the problem is that we are a bit too naive in the sport, but we never use engine supplies as a way to influence control over teams, so this doesn’t change anything," he added.

“The number of times we have seen McLaren or Red Bull or Toro Rosso voting in a completely different way to what we are thinking – it doesn’t remove anything.

“We need to see also how the governance is developing. The plan also presented on the governance side is giving less power to the teams, so you could argue that therefore it’s important to have a critical mass you can influence, maybe that’s something that Mercedes is considering.

“You could also argue that what is going to happen is that the FIA and Formula 1 are going to control most of the sport, full stop, so let’s not try."