Honda’s former F1 boss agrees Red Bull powertrains role By: Jonathan Noble Co-author: Ken Tanaka / Motorsport.com Japan Jan 27, 2022, 6:12 AM Red Bull's engine efforts have been boosted with the news that it will be able to call upon the services of Honda's former Formula 1 managing director Masashi Yamamoto.
Does that mean they intend to develop their PU then? I thought Red Bull extracted an agreement from other engine builders to freeze engine development.
They can develop until the start of the season. Presumably this deal where Honda can help out doesn't have to do with development. More management of the project.
Looks like Honda will stay commited to RedBull until 2025. Honda set to extend direct Red Bull supply to 2025 In a dramatic change of plan Honda will continue to supply power units to Red Bull directly from Japan until the end of the current Formula 1 regulations. Image Unavailable, Please Login Honda ceased its official works involvement in the sport at the end of last season, and henceforth Red Bull is paying for its services, including the development of this year’s power unit for the move from E5 to E10 fuel. The original strategy as announced late last year was that the new Red Bull Powertrains division would take complete power units from Honda, with full engineering support at the tracks, only in 2022. Once RBP had got up to speed it would then build the engines from Honda parts at its Milton Keynes facility in 2023, 2024 and 2025 while simultaneously working on its own project for the new F1 rules that come into force in 2026. However Red Bull motorsport boss Helmut Marko has confirmed that the plan has changed, and the intention now is that Honda will continue to supply complete engines from Japan to RBR and AlphaTauri until the end of 2025. The decision removes any concerns about issues such as quality control that might result from moving the building of the power units to the UK, while also freeing up RBP to focus more on its 2026 project. The change has been made in part to ensure that RBP will still be a new participant when its own engine is introduced in 2026. It will thus benefit from the concessions that are being discussed mainly to help encourage the VW Group to finally commit to F1, such as a higher power unit budget cap. It’s understood that details of the new arrangements have yet to be finalised, and it’s not clear yet whether the engines will still be badged as Hondas until 2025, although such a move would be logical given the desire to ensure that RBP is a new participant in 2026. “We have now also found a completely different solution to the one originally envisaged,” Marko told Autoreview magazine. “The engines will be manufactured in Japan until 2025, we will not touch them at all. That means that the rights and all these things will remain with the Japanese, which is important for 2026 because it makes us newcomers. Image Unavailable, Please Login Marko suggested that winning the 2021 world championship has encouraged Honda to remain closer to F1 than had been expected. “In the course of our ever greater successes, a certain rethinking has taken place among the Japanese. And also that they could of course use the battery knowledge for their electrification phase. “It was initially planned that they would only make our motors for 2022. Now it has been decided that this will continue until 2025, which is of course a huge advantage for us. This means we only have to make fine adjustments and calibrations.” Regarding the building up of the RBP facility he added: “The prerequisite for this agreement was that engine development was frozen. Because the first phase would have been that we do everything ourselves. That's why we started in Milton Keynes and dutifully bought in from [dyno supplier] AVL. “The plant will go into full operation in May/June. The final decision to do it ourselves was conditional on everything being frozen. Because otherwise we wouldn't have had a chance with this complex thing.” Meanwhile as reported on Wednesday former Honda F1 boss Masashi Yamamoto has left the manufacturer to set up his own consultancy in order to provide a bridge between Red Bull and Japan, further extending the continuity between the partners. https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/honda-set-to-extend-direct-red-bull-supply-to-2025/7677393/
Probably a good thing for Red Bull. Looking ahead to 2026 and possible VW group engines, is there any chance Red Bull is working behind the scenes with Porsche/VW/Audi for future engines, given the Porsche heritage in Austria?
A very good thing for RedBull. IF Porsche or Audi either "stamp" their name on the already existing engine OR use their own, RedBull can compare(dyno) their engine against Porsche/Audi and make a determination....nice. What IF Honda stays in F1 past 2026???
Reading between the lines, it looks that the story of Honda leaving was just Red Bull plan to obtain engine development freeze until 2026. The FIA and other engine builders fell for it.
If you are not building it - you are not a builder. They should get no special consideration. That should apply to any team who is not at all making the PU in house. These are still Honda engines lol. Made in Japan yes?
Honda "staying" is a good thing. Maybe by 2025 the upper management will want to continue on. So, will they continue with Honda badging on the cars? I don't think that was made clear . . . . or was it?
No this goes counter to the agreement made on the freeze because Honda was LEAVING. If Im Ferrari or other its time to have a long sit down with the FIA about this. This agreement was because Honda was leaving. Now they arent and RedBull built them a nice base in the UK. Sorry but this is literal horse crap in terms of the rules agreed to with ALL the teams. There should now be a new negotiation over the 'freeze'.
The FIA, Ferrari, Mercedes and Renault have all been duped by Red Bull. Honda was leaving, and Red Bull pleaded for an engine development freeze for that reason. The story was that Red Bull would own the IP of the existing engines, and would be assembling them themselves; But they couldn't afford the development cost and asked for all engine development to be frozen. Less than one year down the line, now they say Honda is still onboard! You couldn't make it up !!!
No, since Red Bull had announced it was taking over the fabrication of its own engines, having access to Honda IP. Now we learn that it won't be the case; Honda will continue as their engine supplier. But in between, Red Bull obtained concessions from the FIA, and the other engine builders.
Not clever, but dishonest. Maybe we haven't heard the last of this. Wait for the other engine builders' reactions to that ! Red Bull just opened another can of worms, IMO.
The way I see it: Some idiot or idiots agreed to the turbo-hybrid system and everyone agreed to it.......advantage Mercedes. Then they came up with the token system from 2014 thru 2016 that hampered engine development.....again, Mercedes advantage. So here we are with RedBull and Homda. Supposedly Honda left, RedBull wanted an engine freeze till 2025 and everyone agreed to it....and now Honda is back. Check-Mate for RedBull and Honda. F1 can be quite "political" if you know how to play the game.
These shady advantages that teams finagle for themselves really cheapen the sport and make it appear crooked.
I won't be surprised to see 1 engine manufacturer have a big advantage over the rest, and F1 will allow a token system, once again. History tends to repeat itself with the idiots of F1. And of course, 1 absolute guarantee we'll have, is if this token system exists again, many hundreds of millions will be spend again trying to find the edge, running countless engines 24/7 in order to find the best spec... It's funny, F1 engine budgets where (way) less when they where using a new engine every session and engine upgrades happened constantly...
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Must've been a painful write for Autosport after their open letter to Max before the final race....LOL
