Red Bull Racing F1 team principal Christian Horner has suggested that Honda could provide technical assistance for the Red Bull Powertrains project for 2026 if it decides to maintain its link to F1. ing.
Porsche announced on Friday, September 9th that negotiations for a partnership with Red Bull had broken down. Red Bull is now free to pursue other potential partnerships.
Honda withdrew from F1 at the end of 2020, ostensibly to focus resources on technologies to achieve carbon neutrality, but agreed to continue supplying its current F1 power units to Red Bull and AlphaTauri until the end of 2025. ing.
Honda then hinted that it might eventually pursue a 2026 F1 project, inevitably leading to speculation that Red Bull would change course and stick with Honda.
Christian Horner argues that the idea of Red Bull abandoning its own F1 power unit project and continuing with Honda’s F1 power unit is too far-fetched. Still, he says he hasn’t ruled out a collaboration with Honda, but only on the hybrid side of the power unit.
In the first place, the partnership with Porsche was that Red Bull was in charge of the internal combustion engine and Porsche was in charge of the hybrid side.
The 2026 F1 power unit regulations won’t make any major changes to V6 turbo engines, but the MGU-K will almost triple the amount of electrical power produced by current hybrid components. Automaker technology is therefore of great help to independent manufacturers like Red Bull Powertrains.
But such a strategy would only work if Honda chose not to remain involved in a full F1 power unit project and pursue partnerships with teams other than Red Bull.
“Our train has left the station for 2026,” said Christian Horner.
“Honda is a great company. They have announced their exit from F1, moving away from the internal combustion engine and turning their attention to electrification of their products.”
“So if they are considering a return to F1, I think they have to take that into consideration. Whether there was any potential interest on the battery side and potential synergies there. Whether or not it can be an interesting discussion.”
“But in terms of the internal combustion engine and the mechanical side, we are very happy with our roadmap to 2026.”
One complication of such an arrangement is that Honda’s support could undermine Red Bull’s position as the new powertrain maker for 2026, and the benefits that come with it, especially a higher cost cap. .
Christian Horner says Red Bull Powertrains is adamant it can build an entire F1 power unit on its own without needing OEM support.
“Don’t worry about that, we are in a position to recruit and invest in-house to do all aspects of the power unit,” said Horner.
Christian Horner also said one of the reasons for the collapse of the Porsche contract was the limited amount of technical assistance provided by Porsche, given the knowledge of staff already employed by Red Bull Powertrains. pointed out that
“What we were interested in was what they might bring to a party that we didn’t have access to when we were building a power unit entity from scratch with an OEM.”
“And I think after doing our due diligence, we actually felt like we were in good shape, and we didn’t feel like we were at a real disadvantage to our competitors, technically, because of the hires we made.”
Category: F1 / red bull / honda f1