Red Bull "flattered" by interest in "scary" powertrain project

Red Bull

Red Bull "flattered" by interest in "scary" powertrain project

Red Bull has poached Mercedes engineers for its new engine department

Ewan Gale

Friday 7 May 2021 13:20

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Christian Horner has declared his team "flattered" by the interest in joining what he has described as the "scary" powertrain project being set up by Red Bull.

The Milton Keynes-based team will house its powertrain facility on-site after reaching an agreement over the winter to take on Honda's intellectual property when the Japanese manufacturer withdraws from F1 at the end of the year.

Ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix, five Mercedes engineers were announced to be making the switch in addition to Ben Hodgkinson who was announced as technical director the previous week.

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In receiving over 600 applications for positions in the new department, with seemingly many from Mercedes staff, Horner told Sky Sports F1: "I think it is an inevitability.

"We are based in the UK, we are only 30 miles up the road from Brixworth where Mercedes engines have chosen to build their engines in the UK and they have done that for a reason because the talent is in the UK.

"For us, bringing the engines onsite, within the campus and fully integrating it with the chassis so the engineers work side by side with each other is tremendously appealing.

"We have been flattered by the number of approaches we have had. We started with a clean sheet of paper and it is important to get the right people in the right positions.

"We have had quite a bit of success in attracting some fantastic talent on top of the talent we will inherit from Honda at the end of the year."

On whether it was an all-out war between Red Bull and Mercedes off track, he added: "People will want to work where they want to work at the end of the day and you can't force people where they don't want to be.

"If we are an attractive place to be and they see the racing spirit, they want to be a part of it, they are going to come on the journey."

With the facility being based on campus at Red Bull's base it means the team joins Ferrari as the only outfit to combine chassis and powertrain engineering into one area.

Horner suggested this would allow flexibility between both departments when developing design philosophies.

"It enables you to optimise both sides of the engineering challenge," added Horner.

"So other than Ferrari, we will be the only team to have that embedded within our campus and that is tremendously exciting from both the chassis side and the power unit side. It is a scary undertaking and a massive undertaking.

"[There were] Comments that an energy drinks company couldn't make a chassis but we have proven we can do that and now we have got to apply the same philosophy and methodology on the power unit side."