Porsche announced on Friday that its long-awaited collaboration with Red Bull will never take place in Formula 1, and they are now open to other potential partnerships. Currently they have Honda as a technical partner, despite the fact that they are camouflaged since only their stickers appear on the back of the car and they officially left the category at the end of last season.
The Japanese ended their Grand Circus run to focus their R&D resources on electrification after agreeing to continue supplying Milton Keynes and its sister team, AlphaTauri, until the end of 2025.
The company has since hinted at its intention to continue beyond the entry into force of the new engine technical regulations, which has inevitably led to speculation that Red Bull would stay with Honda in the new era of the sport.
Team boss Christian Horner insisted the team is too far from coming together after starting its own project, so a collaboration with the Japanese would not be forthcoming. However, he did not rule out a possible cooperation, but only in the hybrid part of the power unit, and that strategy would only work if Honda chose not to remain involved in a full engine plan.
“Our engine has started for 2026,” said Horner. “We have a power unit and a prototype in progress, we have all the necessary power banks. Honda is a great company, they announced their withdrawal from Formula 1 to focus their attention on the electrification of their products, moving away from the combustion engine” .
“So you could assume that if they were considering going back to Formula 1, that would have to be taken into account, and if there was any potential interest in the battery or any synergy, it could be an interesting conversation,” he said. “But in the combustion and mechanical part of the engine, we have a roadmap until 2026 that we are very happy with.”
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB18
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images
One of the complications of any such deal is that support from Honda could compromise Red Bull’s position as the new power unit manufacturer for 2026, especially with a higher budget cap.
Horner insists that Red Bull Powertrains don’t need the help of that, and can build a complete powertrain themselves: “No need to worry about that, we’re in a place to contract and invest within the facility to do all aspects of the power unit.
He also indicated that the agreement with Porsche collapsed in part because of the limited technical help that the German manufacturer would provide, given the knowledge of the personnel they had already hired: “What interested us, when you are building an engine from scratch with a budget limit, It is what they can contribute to something that we do not have access to”.
“And I think, having done our project, we felt like we were actually in a good position,” he continued. “With the signings we’ve made, technically, we don’t feel at any real disadvantage compared to our rivals.”
