Honda will remain engine supplier to Formula 1 teams Red Bull Racing and AlphaTauri. That while the Japanese manufacturer would actually say goodbye after 2021.
As has happened in the past, Honda said goodbye to Formula 1 at a peak last year. Max Verstappen took the world title and thus officially closed the book for Honda F1. It soon became apparent that Honda could not completely pull its hands of Formula 1 after all and it became known that previous rumors about further cooperation with Red Bull were correct. Red Bull is setting up Red Bull Powertrains to further build the Honda engine for the coming years and would receive support from Honda. Now, however, Honda is taking a step that basically means Honda will not leave Formula 1 at all.
On car review said Helmut Marko, head of Red Bull’s F1 program, that it remains a more traditional partnership than previously appeared to be the case. “We now have a completely different solution than we had previously envisioned. The engines will be built in Japan until 2025, we (Red Bull Powertrains, ed.) are not involved at all. This means that all rights also belong to the The Japanese remain,” the Austrian explains.
The latter is important with a view to 2026, when new engine regulations will come into effect. “This makes us newcomers,” said Marko about the fact that Red Bull Powertrains is now not going to work with an existing engine. The fact that Honda continues to supply the engines means that Red Bull Powertrains suddenly has a lot more room in the coming years to work on something else: the new engine for 2026. The Volkswagen Group may be involved. That seems to be entering F1 as an engine supplier for McLaren (with Audi) and Red Bull Racing (with Porsche). Porsche may now be able to work on that power source together with Red Bull Powertrains.
Honda on the car?
Because Honda just continues to supply pure Honda engines, you would also expect Honda to remain visible in Formula 1. That is to say: with the name on the cars of Red Bull Racing and sister team AlphaTauri. However, no decision has yet been made on that. Honda’s decision to remain active as an engine supplier is also not without controversy. The Japanese still firmly stated in 2020 (when the farewell was announced) that it was leaving because of the “shifting focus within the auto industry”. However, there is now a new CEO at Honda and he would have reconsidered that old decision, partly because of the successful 2021 season. Honorable as the Japanese are regular, one would like to see the reversal of such a drastic decision accompanied by little fanfare.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl