Quote Originally Posted by Norm75 View Post
I think at the time redbull and Renault's relationship was a little on the frosty side, with redbull threatening to move to honda engines if renualt didn't pull their finger out. With Lotus not long being rebranded as Renault works team I think it was decided, when redbull continued with Renault engines, to rebrand them as tag engine.
Would be interesting to know what the engine name deal investment and ROI are for TAG Heuer. For Citroen WRT similar case might be tougher to reach, but basically by using same logic and frosty relation situation e.g. M-Sport could have had 2018 engine name deal for Anonimo Watches and Anonimo would have payed e.g. Ogier's salary. Nevertheless what trying to say here is that if for some reason Citroen does not see their full WRT as an good investment to finance (and gain back to) themselves, they could at least try to make some effort to get partners on board. And clearly TAG Heuer deal shows that others see value on this and are able to do this kind of deals. It would be nice to know who are the people in WRC teams who are negotiating the partner and sponsor deals for teams and what are their track records in the past years.