Christian Horner has dismissed talk of a relationship with Ferrari whilst admitting that waiting on Renault is testing his team's patience.

Having used Ferrari engines in its second year of racing, before switching to Renault and passing the Maranello units on to Toro Rosso, some have wondered whether Red Bull might return to its roots (so to speak) in light of its ongoing problems with Renault.

Asked in an interview for the official F1 website, whether the "flirting" with Ferrari is serious, Horner replied: "I think it would be an exaggeration saying that Red Bull is 'flirting' with Ferrari.

"Obviously Red Bull Group had a relationship with Ferrari for many years as engine supplier for Toro Rosso. Sergio (Marchionne) made a generous offer without any details when he attended the Austrian Grand Prix - but right now our focus is on what we have at this point in time."

Helmut Marko recently suggested that Renault might have some answers by Silverstone. In view of the fact that the 'deadline has passed, does Horner have any news?

"I think this is a question to be answered by Renault because it is their business, not ours," he replied. "But as far as I am aware I think that they are making good progress on their dyno. They now have some strategic decisions about implementation, and the direction they want to take their development for the rest of this season - and that has an enormous impact on next year.

"Of course it tests our patience," he says of the timeframe. "Like any competitive team we want performance yesterday, and unfortunately with engines the lead time is a lot longer than with the chassis. Patience is something that we are not really good at. We want to have performance as soon as possible.

"From where the concept is at the moment you are probably looking at least at a couple of months. Two to three months. It needs to happen this year - but also what you learn this year will help you next season.

"It hurts when you are not competitive, and unfortunately there are certain elements we are not in control of. But where we are in control, we are working flat out so that when the power upgrades do come, we are in a position to make best use of them.

Asked if he is satisfied with the chassis situation, he admits: "We are never satisfied. Here you always try to get better. The regulation changes over the winter did hurt us - probably more than we anticipated - but we now have a pretty good understanding of the areas where we need to improve - and how to improve."

He also dismissed talk of James Key leaving Toro Rosso for its (big) sister team.

"We have a strong technical team. Adrian (Newey) is still involved in all the things that are going on and with Rob Marshal, Pierre Wache and Dan Fallows we have a strong technical group - so no desire to change anything."

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1. Posted by Darvi, 14/07/2015 11:06

"@Paul C - Interesting idea..... Indycars use 2.2-litre, twin turbocharged, direct-injected V6 engines from Chevrolet or Honda....... and they don't have all the MGUH, MGUK, ES and CE elements that are proving to be so troublesome, so there would still be a big job of work to adapt an Indy engine, unless you're intending to adopt the same regulations....... which might have merit, although Mercedes, Renault and Ferrari would probably take a dim view.

How about standardising engines across LMES and F1 so that manufacturers can sell their engines for both championships..... that would mean we added Porsche, Audi and Toyota...... however, that would probably create such a strom that the fallout would be immense!

Surely Honda would have gone that route if it would have worked and I'm not sure that GM would be that interested."

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2. Posted by Paul C, 14/07/2015 2:52

"Think waaay out of the box; try adapting an Indy Car ICE."

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We're not flirting with Ferrari, insists Horner

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