RED BULL Racing is sending its F1 engine supplier Honda away in style and will compete in the Turkish Grand Prix on October 10th with an exclusive paint job.
The Istanbul race is a replacement for the canceled Japanese GP, which would have been Honda’s last home race before being eliminated at the end of the 2021 season.
As one-off car paint jobs have to be planned well in advance and the Japanese GP was canceled in mid-August, it is reported that Red Bull will continue with the new look of its RB16B racer at the replacement race.
The team teased a potential paint job on social media, with their Twitter feed posting a short video that read “Arigatou” (thank you in Japanese) and flashed between a white background and Red Bull’s traditional dark blue colors.
pic.twitter.com/WaMGd4vJXY
– Red Bull Racing Honda (@redbullracing) October 5, 2021
A second tweet shows a video of the nose cone being painted in the Red Bull paint shop and suggests a traditional white Honda Racing paint job for the cars of Sergio Perez and title contender Max Verstappen, but everything will be revealed in Friday practice.
Something looks different … あ り が と う @ HondaRacingF1 
pic.twitter.com/44GUwHHvrl
– Red Bull Racing Honda (@redbullracing) October 6, 2021
Why is Honda leaving Formula 1?
One of Honda’s famous mantras is “Racing makes the race better,” but the company has some kind of on-off relationship with Formula One and the current advance is its fourth era in the sport. Honda is leaving because Honda believes the enormous resources it takes to develop a Formula 1 engine should better be spent on developing technology for its street cars before it goes carbon neutral by 2030.
Honda announced Red Bull and Alpha Tauri at the end of the 2020 season – The second Red Bull team to field Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda – Time to find a new engine supplier.
However, Red Bull will take the RA621H engine used by both teams and continue development itself in a brand new facility at its headquarters in Milton Keynes.
History of Honda in F1
1964-1968: Honda first got into Formula 1 in the 1960s, just four years after producing its first street car. It was one of the few teams to build engines and its own chassis, and it achieved reasonable success, including race wins for British Formula 1 World Champion John Surtees. The company won many fans for its professionalism and competitive spirit, as well as the unforgettable sounds of its high-revving engines. Honda’s first withdrawal in 1968 followed the death of driver Jo Schlesser and the need to focus on expanding sales in the United States.
1983-1992: When Honda returned in the 1980s, it did so as an engine supplier in the turbo era, where cars could produce 1,000 horsepower or more in qualifying. Honda initially worked with the small Spirit team, but then achieved tremendous success with big hitters like Lotus and Williams and riders like Ayrton Senna, Nelson Piquet, Keke Rosberg and Nigel Mansell.
Honda’s greatest success came with McLaren and its drivers Senna and Alain Prost. McLaren Honda dominated the sport, winning all but one race in the 1988 season. A switch to 3.5-liter naturally aspirated engines in 1989 could not dampen performance. The Japanese financial crash prompted Honda to withdraw in 1992.
2000-2008: Around the turn of the millennium, Honda returned as an engine supplier to BAR and Jordan, while the Honda Racing F1 Team was formed when the company took over BAR for the 2006 season. After limited success and the onset of the global financial crash, Honda pulled the plug in 2008. Insiders were disappointed as it felt like the 2009 car would be fast; a management buyout resulted in team boss Ross Brawn taking over the team, and in fact the newly formed Brawn GP won the 2009 team and driver titles with Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello in its only season.
2015-2021: Honda teamed up with McLaren again in hopes of reviving its glory years, but it didn’t succeed. Honda’s inability to get its innovative hybrid system to perform in terms of absolute performance or reliability led to the relationship with McLaren Sour, and the two paths parted in 2017. To the surprise of many observers, Honda began delivering the Red Bull in 2018. Second-row teams Toro Rosso, and the results came. Shortly afterwards, Red Bull also came on board.
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