Key may be promoted as Red Bull on verge of reshuffle

Red Bull is working hard to restructure amid a pending revolution within the team, kick started by the departure of Sebastian Vettel to Ferrari, Adrian Newey’s diminishing responsibility in the technical department and a woeful start to the season for both energy drinks owned teams.

Speculation is that Red Bull might help team boss Christian Horner to bring his GP2 outfit Arden into F1 so that it can be a B-team, along the lines of Ferrari’s new alliance with the 2016 entrant Haas.

Another is that Red Bull might promote Toro Rosso technical director James Key to the senior team. And Red Bull is also having to pin its hopes on engine supplier Renault, despite the fact they recently appeared on the verge of divorce.

Team consultant Helmut Marko acknowledged, but it may be too late to rescue the 2015 campaign. “We know that the season has gone. Now we just need to make the best of it. We need to work together to get out of this crisis.”

Grid penalties for exceeding the four-engine-per-driver rule are definitely looming on the horizon, he revealed.

“Fifth engine, sixth engine, it’s pretty irrelevant now,” said Marko. “We know that at some point we will take a penalty, we can only hope that it doesn’t happen in the worst possible place, like Monaco for example.

“We had problems with our chassis at the beginning,” Marko explained, “but what is holding us back now is the lack of engine reliability and performance. But we are trying to help Renault as much as possible.”