• The Inside Line

Alternative power gives you wings

A future power source for Red Bull? © Press Association

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Red Bull said this weekend that there were no guarantees that their power-train supply deal with Renault would go on forever. Helmut Marko said the team were contemplating taking the fight to Mercedes with a Red Bull engine, and that other options were being considered in the long term.

Given that Red Bull don't have the experience of an outfit like Mercedes Benz High Performance Powertrains, I thought the team might be open to a few of my suggestions…

While solar power could be an interesting choice in this green era, Red Bull already have unfettered access to a resource with far more wattage than the sun: Daniel Ricciardo's grin. Harness the power from that smile and the team will be faster than any land speed record holding car you could care to mention.

Another essentially unlimited resource available to the team is the energy drink that gives the racers their name. But instead of doing the obvious and using Red Bull as fuel, simply shake the hell out of a series of cans on the grid and fit a device that opens them all at once on the start. The next few generations of Red Bull racing car will whizz around like mad, and the liquid residue left behind will shake up the racing as following cars struggle for grip. Or get stuck in the sticky residue when the liquid dries.

Given the team's name, and the powerful-looking bull drawn on the side of each car, why not harness the strength of the beast itself, replacing the power unit entirely with one animal hopped up on taurine? Adrian Newey might need to wave farewell to his tightly-packaged rear ends, but cooling would be a less complex issue than it is at present. It also gives a whole new complexion to the notion of exhaust gases…

Finally, why not make the most of the Infiniti partnership and power the car with Infraparticles, or the Infinity Particle? It's a real life scientific thing, honest! The Wikipedia article is full of F1 2014-friendly buzzwords like 'low-energy excitation' and 'electrodynamic', but I'm not entirely convinced they've been used in a way that's at all relevant to motorsport.

Much like this blog, really…

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