French team Renault F1 is warning the late-payers: if they do not pay what they owe them for the engines, their supply line will be cut.
Renault Sport F1 head, Jean-Michel Jalinier, talked to reporters in Barcelona as the Spanish Grand Prix week end opened. He warned the teams that have not paid for their engines yet, that they would face an interruption of their engine supply if they did not clear their debts.
However, he did not mention any name of his famous customers. Renault currently supplies 4 teams in the paddock, Red Bull and its sister team Toro Rosso, Lotus, who is known for having money shortages and Caterham.
The costly recovery plan, which enabled Red Bull to improve its results, is putting Renault in a difficult situation as some of their customers are not meeting their due dates.
“Our resources are coming from two sources: One is Renault, and we have been able to secure the right resources…and the other part of it is coming from the teams, because we are selling the engines to the teams,” he said, before adding “On this part I must say we are not at an acceptable situation, because some of the teams are just late in payments, and at the time you need to spend resources to catch up you cannot afford to have those (late) payments.”
As a result, the French team is losing patience. And you can understand why as Jalinier pointed out that the team will be facing a critical point around Monaco Grand Prix, that will take place in a fortnight.
Jalinier and his team could consider withholding their engine supply if the teams concerned do not clear their debts in sufficient times.