After Honda indicated in October 2020 that it would leave the sport after 2021, Red Bull was faced with a dilemma, because it did not want to return to the status of a customer team after the successful collaboration with the Japanese.
However, the team found a solution. In the coming years they will be allowed to take over the Honda engine and continue to use it until the introduction of the new generation of engines in 2025. At the same time, the development of the current engines is frozen. In this way, the team of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez only has to maintain it, and not develop it further.
Red Bull will therefore not continue to develop, but at the same time the team will develop its own new engine in the background from 2022. To this end, it has set up Red Bull Powertrains, the engine department with which it will build its own engine in-house in a specially built engine factory.
In conversation with Coach team boss Christian Horner once again explains the choice for the chosen path. “It was fundamental that the development of the current engines was frozen and we succeeded in that in February in collaboration with the FIA.”
“That makes the landing a bit softer for us and Honda is also very helpful. We can take over their intellectual property, which will allow us to move forward in the coming years. In the meantime, we are building a team that focuses on the new engine rules, which are 2025 or 2026 will be introduced.”
Horner is very much looking forward to the new challenge, seventeen years after he started as team principal at Red Bull. “I enjoy it and I am very motivated by this new challenge. Starting something new like Red Bull Powertrains is great. For me Formula 1 is a sport that is about people and we have to get the right people in to get a good engine just like we’ve done with the chassis.”
Is he sure that Red Bull is not taking too much on the fork with this choice? No, this is the right way, Horner judges. “We need a competitive engine, and this is the best route to get there. Mercedes wasn’t going to provide us with an engine and Renault didn’t want it either, so we had little choice. Toto will regret that decision. Maybe he will need a bike from us in the future!”, he concludes with a joke.
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