Complete reversal: Honda will remain in F1 until 2025

Honda and Red Bull Racing haven’t finalized it yet as some details remain to be worked out, but it’s now almost certain that the Japanese company will continue building and supplying the power units of the RBR and Alpha Tauri cars until the end of 2025.

What he will do after leaving office is not yet known.

In the fall of 2020, Honda announced it would be leaving F1 at the end of 2021 – and that’s exactly what happened after last December’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Meanwhile, Red Bull Racing is preparing for the transition tomorrow by setting up its first engine plant at its Milton Keynes facility.

At the same time, it staffed its new department with countless new hires from leading engineers, including Ben Hodgkinson, former head of Mercedes HPP (High Performance Powertrains), who oversaw the construction of the Mercedes F1 powerplants.

The purpose of Red Bull Racing was to take over the construction of the engines themselves, taking advantage of the fact that from 2022 to the end of 2025 all their developments will be “frozen” to allow the manufacturers to devote their infrastructure and resources to the design and the development of the brand new engines of 2026.

Despite this, Honda stuck with the RBR plan, as as part of its new plan, Milton Keynes’ team decided to buy the Japanese company’s services to develop the powerplant in 2022 – since the use of biofuels has seen a number of mechanical modifications since that year brings with it, before the complete cessation of engine development.

At the same time, RBR’s agreement with Honda, which called for Japanese engineers to support engines during the 2022 GP, would handle full powerplant construction and maintenance for years to come.

Now, however, the plan seems to have unexpectedly and completely changed. RBR consultant Dr. Helmut Marco, said Honda now intends to continue supplying engines directly from Japan to Red Bull Racing and Alpha Tauri until the end of 2025.

Justifying this apparent complete reversal of plans, Marco explained that this was done in part to ensure that Red Bull Powertrains is considered a new manufacturer when the new 2026 regulations arrive – to take advantage of new engine manufacturers.

Those privileges – which the FIA ​​is considering introducing to encourage VW Group entry with Porsche and Audi – include the higher budget limit for the construction and development of the 2026 powerplants.

Marco emphasized in an interview with the magazine Autorevue: “We have now come up with a completely different solution than the one we originally designed. The engines will be made in Japan through 2025, and we won’t be touching them at all. “It means that the Japanese will retain the rights to the engines, which is important for 2026 because that would make us an emerging engine manufacturer.”

Whether this decision by Red Bull or Honda is related to the growing rumors that the former are close to an agreement with Porsche for 2026 or even a possible sale of Alpha Tauri to the German company is currently not known, for the creation of a pure team of Porsche F1.

According to Marco, Honda’s decision was encouraged by Max Ferstappen winning the 2021 Championship in Abu Dhabi: “During our success, several thoughts went through the minds of the Japanese. They also thought they could use it [στα αυτοκίνητα παραγωγής] the know-how they acquire [μέσω της F1] for the battery”. The Austrian obviously means the know-how from the complete hybrid system of the F1 engines.

Marco concluded: “Originally it was planned to only build our engines for 2022. Now it has been decided that they will continue until 2025, which is a great advantage for us. This means that we only have to make small adjustments and calibrations [του κινητήρα]”.