Just 12 months ago the partnership between Red Bull Racing and Renault had turned toxic.
During 2015, Red Bull Racing were constantly criticising the French car maker, whilst desperately trying to get out of their contract with them in regards to buying their power-units for 2016.
Red Bull approached Mercedes, Ferrari and Honda in a bid to get a new engine for 2016.
The poor publicity made Renault seriously consider leaving the sport entirely.
Eventually however it proved too hard for Red Bull to obtain another engine and eventually had to go cap in hand back to Renault for 2016.
Renault meanwhile opted to purchase the Lotus team and return to Formula One as a fully fledged manufacturer.
Renault now have the focus of a Formula One manufacturer in their own right, whilst Red Bull have teamed up with TAG Heuer to rebrand their engine.
Those changes seem to have benefited everyone and Red Bull Racing now have a legitimate claim to being the best-of-the-rest behind Mercedes.
That partnership has proved so successful, that a new deal has been signed to run through to the end of 2018. Something that seemed inconceivable, a year ago.
The new deal will also see Toro Rosso return to Renault engines after using old specification Ferrari power-units this season.
‘It was a fairly straightforward discussion to extend the agreement for a further two years,’ Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner told motorsport.com.
‘With the restructuring in Renault, the commitment they have made, the investment they are making, it was a fairly logical and straightforward discussion.
‘It is a competitive price that we are paying and obviously we have that ability to be branded something else and STR taking the same power unit creates further synergies there as well.’
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