It’s been in the planning for some time, but ahead of this weekend’s French Grand Prix, Red Bull and Honda have announced they will be teaming up from next season…
Red Bull is frustrated with current power unit supplier Renault, while Honda has been open to taking on a second team to catch up with pace-setting engines from Mercedes and Ferrari.
After several weeks of formal discussions, Red Bull and Honda agreed to join forces for 2019 and 2020 until the end of current engine regulations. The team will continue to compete under the full Aston Martin Red Bull Racing name.
“We have been impressed by Honda’s commitment to F1, by the rapid strides they have been making with our sister team Scuderia Toro Rosso recently and by the range of their ambitions which align with our own,” said team principal Christian Horner.
“This multi-year agreement with Honda signals the start of an exciting new phase in Aston Martin Red Bull Racing’s efforts to not just compete for Grand Prix wins, but for what is always our goal – championship titles.”
The move is the first time Honda has supplied more than one team since the Japanese manufacturer returned to F1 with McLaren in 2015.
Honda has been expanding its UK plant in Milton Keynes for a number of years to house a second operation and is therefore able to supply both Red Bull and Toro Rosso from 2019.
As part of the deal, Red Bull and Toro Rosso, with whom Honda secured a brilliant fourth place finish in Bahrain earlier this year, will run engines with identical specifications.
“With two teams, we can access twice as much data as before,” commented Takahiro Hachigo, President & Representative Director of Honda Motor Co., Ltd. “We believe that working with Toro Rosso and Red Bull Racing will allow us closer to our goal of winning races and championships and building two strong partnerships.”
Red Bull’s decision to work with Honda ends a 12-season relationship with Renault that has yielded 57 wins, four Drivers’ and four Constructors’ Championships.
“We’ve always made decisions like this dispassionately and with only one criterion in mind – do we believe that the result will allow us to compete at a higher level,” added Horner. “After careful consideration and evaluation, we believe this partnership with Honda is the right direction for the team.
“We would like to thank Renault for the past 12 years, a time in which we have shared some incredible moments together. We sometimes had our disagreements, but Renault have always worked tirelessly and to the best of their ability to provide us with a competitive powerplant.
“That is still the case today and we would like to thank the Renault team and especially the guys in our garage for their tireless efforts at every race and look forward to ending our partnership on a high note at the end of this season.
“We remain very focused for the remainder of this year on achieving the best possible results in the Championship in 2018 and we wish Renault Sport all the best for the future.”
Renault only supplies two teams in 2019 – the works and McLaren – Mercedes and Ferrari each have two customers in addition to their works teams.
“Two years after Renault’s return as a factory team, we see this as a natural progression for Renault and Red Bull Racing given their respective ambitions,” Renault said in the message.
“In an extremely demanding and competitive environment, we are proud of the exceptional results achieved with Red Bull Racing over the past 12 seasons.
“After two seasons, we are fully focused on the strong development of the Renault Sport Formula One Team while continuing to nurture the fresh relationship with McLaren Racing.”
Lawrence Baretto [Senior Writer, F1.com] says …
That deal has been possible for years, but talks only got serious this season when Honda began to prove they had what it took to compete at the highest level again.
It’s a risk for both sides. Red Bull wants to win and moving to what is currently fourth out of four engine manufacturers might not look like the best choice on paper.
Honda has now worked with a large team at McLaren and we all know how well that went. Joining forces with a team that’s hard on their suppliers could be a disaster.
But the partnership also makes sense for many reasons. Red Bull is fed up with Renault’s constant failure to catch up with Mercedes and Ferrari.
They have been on the lookout for a new engine supplier to take over at the end of 2020, in the hope that the new engine rules will lure new manufacturers into joining F1.
In Honda they get a company desperate to succeed after being burned by its relationship with McLaren. You have the most to gain by the Law of Diminishing Returns.
They have also shown this season that they are able to manage their reliability issues and subsequently improve performance given the right conditions.
Red Bull will also be Honda’s main focus, while they were just a customer at Renault. Honda can now focus on working with two teams that are under the same roof, which makes everything easier.
For Honda, they have a chance to prove they can win again in F1. Red Bull have shown time and time again that they can deliver a leading chassis. There will be pressure but Honda has been through the growing pains and now has a better foundation to build on.
It might not work, but there are more positives than negatives to taking the plunge. And if it does, it will almost certainly go down in history as one of F1’s greatest comeback stories.
