Honda officially left Formula 1 at the end of last season and Red Bull has been paying for its services ever since, including developing this year’s power unit for the fuel switch from E5 to E10 .
The original strategy, as announced at the end of 2021, was that the new Red Bull Powertrains (RBP) division would use full Honda power units with full engineering support on the track, but only in 2022.
Once that Red Bull engine division had caught up, they would build the engines with Honda parts at their Milton Keynes facility in 2023, 2024 and 2025 while simultaneously working on a project for new Honda power unit rules. F1 that will come into force in 2026.
However, Red Bull motorsport boss Helmut Marko has confirmed that the plan has changed, with the intention now being for Honda to continue supplying complete engines from Japan to Red Bull and AlphaTauri until the end of 2025.
That decision removes any concerns about issues such as quality control that could come from shifting manufacturing of the power units to the UK, while also freeing up Red Bull Powertrains to focus more on its 2026 project.
This change was made in part to ensure that Red Bull Powertrains remains a new entrant in 2026.
So it will benefit from concessions being discussed mainly to encourage the Volkswagen Group to eventually join F1, such as a higher engine budget cap.
Motorsport.com has learned that the details of the new deals have yet to be agreed, and it is not yet clear whether the engines will continue to be called Honda until 2025, although that would be a logical step given the desire to ensure that Red Bull Powertrains is a new supplier in 2026.
“Now we have also found a completely different solution than originally planned,” Marko told Autoreview magazine.
“The engines will be made in Japan until 2025, we won’t touch them at all. That means the rights and all that stuff will stay with the Japanese, which is important for 2026 because it makes us a new manufacturer.”
Marko suggested that winning the 2021 world championship has encouraged Honda to move closer to F1 than expected.
“While our successes have grown, there has been some rethinking among the Japanese. And also that of course they could use the battery knowledge for their electrification phase.”
“Initially it was planned that they would only build our engines for 2022. It has now been decided that this will continue until 2025, which of course is a big plus for us. That means we only have to do small adjustments and calibrations.”
Regarding the construction of the RBP facility, he added: “The prerequisite for this deal was that engine development was frozen. Because the first phase would have been for us to do it all ourselves. That’s why we started in Milton Keynes and bought diligently to AVL [the testbed provider].”
“The plant will be fully operational in May/June. The final decision to do it ourselves was conditional on everything being frozen. Otherwise we wouldn’t have had a chance with something so complex.”
Meanwhile, as reported on Wednesday, former Honda F1 boss Masashi Yamamoto has left the manufacturer to set up his own consultancy to provide a bridge between Red Bull and Japan, further extending the relationship between the partners.
