Red Bull boss Christian Horner had made his anger clear after talks over an engine unfreeze for 2015 collapsed in Brazil. Mercedes has again declined to agree to a deal after compromise solution was discussed by the main players.
While all the manufacturers can make substantial changes over the winter, their power units have to be homologated by the end of February. RBR, Renault and Ferrari, supported by McLaren and Honda, are pushing to open a second window of development later in the season – for the simple reason that they cannot complete the upgrades they want to make in the time available. All parties have to agree to a rule change for next year.
“It’s all rather frustrating,” said Horner. “You sit down and talk about things and you leave the room thinking you’ve agreed something, and then it all changes. I think you probably need to ask Mercedes their reasoning behind it. It’s a ridiculous situation that we can’t find a solution to, so I really have no idea what the outcome will be.
“You can sit in a meeting and agree things with people that then change their minds five minutes after they’ve left room. It’s a very frustrating situation. We spent a long time talking about, and we’ve agreed a position twice now, and it changes and it constantly changes. I think there’s an awful lot of frustration now between the teams.”
The alternative path for the teams that want changes is that they vote for development to be opened up beyond 2015. The regulations can be done my majority vote prior to June 30 next year.
“I think that’s the only option, because with a majority vote ’16, ’17, ’18 can be opened. So we’ll have to face the pain in ’15 in order to open it up in ’16, 17, which is ridiculous since we’ll all end up spending a lot more money over a longer period of time, whereas what should happen is a window should be opened to allow Renault, Ferrari, Honda to try and close that gap.
“There’s no guarantees that we can close that gap significantly to Mercedes. But not having the opportunity to do so, that’s the thing that seems pretty unpalatable, especially on engine technology that is immature.”
Asked by this writer about the specific issue of Red Bull Technology’s new engine group coming together so late he said: “It’s timing for everyone. To introduce a brand new engine for February is impossible.”
Adam Cooper's F1 Blog 
Ah, Christian, I don’t seem to remember such a desire to let other teams have ANY chance of catching up when Red Bull we so dominant a few short seasons ago…
That’s because the FIA did all the dirty work to ensure RBR never had more than 0.75s in hand. The other teams were forever trying to get various technologies banned. Given Mercedes were one of those teams its entirely fair that Horner is frustrated that Merc hold the cards around the power unit disparity. Let’s not kid ourselves either, Merc have a big lead PU wise because they spent vastly more than Ferrari or Renault. Resource restriction? Not sure that applied to PU development.
If the roles were reversed Merc would say the same thing. Its just the way F1 is.
Maybe we Honda to rock up with something that blows the Merc PU out of the water to see how quickly Toto has a change of heart!
Christian knows that the engine has been below par since pre season testing, so why did they not push for a majority change before the rules were locked down for next year? The time for protesting and moving the goalpost was the summer, too little too late now.
Albert, you are wrong. That is beauty of design, it never stops. If RB had a better design teams could bring new parts to each race and try to close the gap. Mercedes has the best engine by far and they are blocking others from making those changes. It is not like RB had the best design each year and was able to block others from trying to catch up.
It’s just the 2013 tyre saga all over again,complain enough and maybe someone will listen.
“It’s a ridiculous situation that we can’t find a solution to…” And here I was thinking this line referred to the distribution of payouts in the sport!
Yes, Paul and Michael, I see what you are saying. I stand corrected. Those are good points.
Why would Mercedes ever agree to give up this obvious advantage ? It’s madness to even argue the point. MB paid some serious dues over the years to get to this point and they finally have success. Red Bull played the Renault gamble (unlike Williams) and here we are. The FIA may eventually offer a patch, but MB has no obligation to do anything.
Horner is so desperate to reclaim lost advantage he has the temerity to now propose going back to the V8’s. And at the end says I know it cant work, but we should consider it. What a tool!