Since Honda decided to leave Formula 1 at the end of last season, the rumors about a possible regret and the possibility of trying to return in 2026 with the arrival of the new generation of engines are constant.
At the moment, the Japanese manufacturers still share a close bond with Red Bull, but it seems that the Austrians are very close to closing a new partnership with Porsche .
This leaves the Japanese motorcyclists in a rather delicate scenario, with AlphaTauri, the lower team of the Austrian structure, as one of their only possibilities to return to the highest category of motorsport.
However, the CEO of Red Bull, Christian Horner , wanted to answer these rumors and, although he did not mention the Faenza team, he did make the situation of the energy drink team very clear.
“Is Honda coming back from 2026? That’s a question for them to answer,” Horner said. “I’ll just say that if they do it it won’t be with us, there hasn’t been any conversation about it.”
“We have recently opened our own building to manufacture engines and hired all the necessary staff. So we hope to be able to produce our own power units in 2026.”
“Right now we still have a partnership with Honda , who continue to support us and offer us their advice and help in building engines for both of our teams.”
“There is also a lot of talk about the arrival of Porsche and Audi in Formula 1, but it is not entirely clear right now, because what will be the next engine regulation that F1 will have from 2026 has not yet been approved. , concluded the director of Red Bull .
After a few years of driving through the desert, Honda parted ways with McLaren at the end of the 2017 season and, were it not for the Austrian structure, which allowed him to continue working at his inferior team, at that time Toro Rosso, he would surely be would have been forced to leave Formula 1 at the beginning of 2018.
After checking how the union between the Japanese and the Faenza team had worked, Red Bull made the decision to break its ties with Renault and join the Japanese in 2019, a union that quickly began to bear fruit and that in 2021, coinciding with goodbye to Honda, Max Verstappen won the first title for the Milton Keynes structure since 2013.
