Crap excuse for a deranged mutant and head honcho of Formula One Bernie Ecclestone now says that it’s possible for Red Bull to be sued if they choose to depart from the sport, according to a report from The Independent. A contract Red Bull signed to participate in the sport until at least 2020 is at the heart of Ecclestone’s threat.
Ecclestone told The Independent:
Red Bull would stand up in court and say ‘Yes, we have a commitment, but we haven’t got an engine.’ My argument would be ‘You signed the contract to compete. You should have made sure when you signed the contract that you had an engine. Your team was supposed to do this.’
Ecclestone argues that in Red Bull not continuing with current engine supplier Renault, not being able to secure any other engine deal, and leaving the sport as a result, they could be sued for breach of contract.
The Old Man Yelling At A Cloud also says he’d like to force the teams back to V8 engines, as if that’s a thing he can just unilaterally do:
I don’t think we should get consent from the teams. I think we should just do it and say to them, ‘If you don’t like it you can go to arbitration.’ We could get the V8s back next year. People can build them in no time so we ought to do it.
Yes! Legal action for everybody! You get a lawsuit! And you get a lawsuit! And you get some legal arbitration!
The world’s richest Grinch Who Stole Christmas stand-in then blamed engineers for making the V6s overcomplicated, possibly contributing to Red Bull’s predicament:
This engine shouldn’t have been that complicated, to be honest with you. It was only when the engineers got hold of it that it became complicated. The product is not fit for the purpose.
Yes, yes. Put the blame on the pesky engineers who make things work, who’ve invested years of development into the current formula, and who might not take kindly to a single-handed shake-up of the entire formula overnight. Uh-huh. Sure. THAT makes sense, buddy.
In addition to things like “the Internet,” “women,” and “human rights,” it seems like Mr. Ecclestone doesn’t understand how the process of putting a car together works in his own series, either. As much as I’d love to see Red Bull back in its V8-era level of competitiveness, one does not simply build a V8 “in no time,” particularly when development on next year’s cars starts during the middle of the current season. It’s already late October, dude. Ain’t gonna happen.
Curiously, Ecclestone’s proposed solution to Red Bull’s woes seems somewhat based in reality and sense, which is odd, I know, but it happens:
If Ferrari only agreed to supply one customer engine, Mercedes only agreed to supply one, nobody would have any engines. That’s exactly what the situation is. We need an independent engine supplier. I’ve been on about this now for a year and a half.
As to whether Red Bull would take an independent supplier’s engine in place of the faulty Renault, that’s yet to be determined, but at this point, it seems like Red Bull is stuck without a power unit next year regardless.
I’m not sure what’s worse for Red Bull: groveling back to Renault and risking the same power unit and/or supplier relationship problems next year, or risking whatever legal action comes their way from F1.
Photo credit: Getty Images
Contact the author at stef.schrader@jalopnik.com.