Red Bull’s relationship with Honda will continue until the end of 2025, when the contract with Ford officially begins, but barriers between the two sides have already formed.
Honda started an ‘information war’ with Red Bull before parting ways with the Formula 1 giant.
The two sides have maintained an extremely fruitful alliance for many years. Honda built the engines that took the team to the top of the sport and continued to support Red Bull when they first moved into building their own engines.
But all of this will end after the 2025 season. Red Bull announced a major new partnership with Ford Motor Company earlier this year, which will officially start with the 2026 season. However, Honda will still participate in F1 after complying with the new engine regulations that will come into effect at the same time. The Japanese automaker has signed a contract with Aston Martin to become the official powertrain supplier for the team.
While Red Bull’s partnership will continue until then, the way the two work together has begun to change. Koji Watanabe, head of the auto giant’s racing department, explained how.
“Red Bull didn’t tell us anything about its engine and we didn’t tell them anything about our development,” he told De Telegraaf. “So there’s been a kind of information war going on now. At Red Bull, they have some knowledge of our current engine but ultimately, we’re responsible for the development.” development and the whole process. Most of the knowledge belongs to us.”
Watanabe was then impressed by Honda’s ambitions regarding its partnership with Aston Martin. Lewis Hamilton hopes to pit Red Bull against Mercedes, while Ferrari and McLaren also want to enter the title fight, but Honda and Aston Martin believe they can beat them all and become the main threat to Red Bull. evolution.
He say:
“Until 2025, I hope Red Bull wins everything. And from 2026, we hope to become their biggest competitor. Building a completely new engine is a huge challenge but our goal is also to win the championship in the next era. »
Until then, Watanabe will help Red Bull extract even more potential from its current powertrain despite the F1 engine freeze. He added:
“In terms of power and performance, we cannot improve anything, but in other areas we can make progress even with this engine.
For example, at Ferrari they have developed the engine significantly and Mercedes’ ERS [energy recovery system] is also very efficient. We will also improve our engines next year in terms of longevity. So there’s definitely something going on.”
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