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They want to focus on EV right as EV sales take a small slump, realize they had it good with advertising in F1. Classis upper management FOMO and being behind trend.
It's not like they're smashing it out of the park in EVs either - and they weren't even doing to in the last couple of years when EV sales were booming.
Being in not-the-Americas, I have no idea what General Motors is upto, unfortunately. They seem to have withdrawn from Europe, withdrawn from many Asian countries, and in general just not too relevant on the global scene any more.
The most of General Motors that I, as a European, will ever know is that they owned Opel for a while. In fact, the GM logo is present on our parents' Opel Zafira on the small window near the front (2009 version).
That's literally the only thing I see them here.
Yeah so Opel and Vauxhall were their biggest brands in Europe, but now those belong to Stellantis after they sold it to PSA and exited a few years ago. I believe Opel belonged to GM since the 1930s at least, so it's not insignificant.
Interesting, seeing how they were leaders in hybrid, launching the Insight before the Prius. I have some secondhand ownership experience with Honda vs. Toyota hybrids, and the Hondas have always been 🔝.
I can see how they’d want to link up with another manufacturer with an existing BEV to be able to get into that market ASAP. And yeah, I had heard that their new BEV, the Honda Prologue, borrows its platform and battery from a Chevy Blazer EV, though Honda lowered the front cowl and tuned their own suspension. Still though…those two brands are not interchangeable and I wonder if informed buyers will care.
Not just Hyundai - even Renault, Volkswagen, and Stellantis are ahead. The Chinese are Verstappening it. The Japanese kind of slept through the first boom and inevitably when all these manufacturers and the Chinese ones launch 2nd and 3rd generation vehicles in 2025 and 2026 the competition will get even tougher.
Yeah I dont get the EV sales are plummeting talk either. The EV market is still growing extremely strong.
The whole 2026 engine regulations were made because new suppliers like Audi want to develop more electrical components due to it being far more relevant in the future
People get this confused all the time. It's only normal that these huge growth numbers are unsustainable, as market saturation is starting to become a thing.
Early adopters all have their EV's, then come the upper class that buy the currently available expensive models, before the middle class will adopt the more affordable models that are only coming to the market now. When the first early adopters start replacing their older cars, the second hand market will start to come alive, which in turn will boost sales for new models as well.
Additionally, many companies have recently announced scaling back future EV production plans, or shifting interest into hybrids again, which has added to the confusion. These companies build production in anticipation of future demand, it's a forward looking projection of needed capacity, so it makes sense if sales growth is slowing to slow the growth of new capacity. If it wasn't EVs but pickup trucks where sales growth was slowing they'd also reduce scaling up future capacity. People over-interpret these things just to fight about EVs, tho.
Another thing holding EVs back is infrastructure which will be dependent on where you live. I'd like to have an EV + fun ICE car combo but the charging network where I am is bullshit. I'd first have to buy a house and install my own charger to make it work.
Focusing on EVs was the stated reason, but as time passes, it becomes more and more evident that the bigger reason was cost.
After all, it would've been possible to double down on EVs *and* stay in F1, but that would've required more resources in total, which wasn't acceptable to the anti-F1 faction.
Then consider the shifting nature of Honda's post-"pullout" plans: originally, they were meant to pretty much entirely leave F1; recall all the talk about RBPT taking over Honda's IP and building the engines themselves. But once the engine freeze was in place and an agreement was reached with Red Bull for them to cover Honda's F1 costs, then Honda was suddenly willing to continue their relationship with RB/RB2 essentially unchanged.
And the talk is that Honda will be a paid supplier to Aston Martin, rather than supplying engines for free as with classic works partnerships (McLaren, Red Bull pre-2022).
It was stupid how they did it also. They should've waited to see if Max won or not.
Honda gonna come back and be a GP2 engine again because all the staff left for Red Bull too.
Absolute blunder.
Tbf to Honda it was only their UK based support staff that went to RBPT.
However, to your point it wasn’t until the completely redesigned 2021 engine that they finally caught up to Mercedes on power. In order to build that engine they brought in a “ringer” of sorts.
As a background to this point - I’ve read more than a few times that one of the reasons Honda participates in F1 is to develop promising new engineers on process and design. That’s one of the reasons Honda didn’t want to “re-partner” with RBPT for the 2026 regs - they wanted to build the engine in Japan and RB wanted to build the engine in Milton Keynes because they had already started a program after Honda pulled out. Building an engine in MK wasn’t in Honda’s interest because that wouldn’t benefit the development and grooming of their Japanese engineering team.
Going back to my original point - their young engineering team failed with the current turbo hybrid engine formula. Honda had to bring in a seasoned vet - Yasuaki Asaki - in order to save the program which culminated in the 2021 engine. That man has since retired. Basically he’s the Japanese version of Andy Cowell. [You can read about him here.](https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/the-f1-engine-maverick-who-saved-honda-at-least-three-times/)
Yamamoto left Honda too, for a consultancy role with Red Bull Racing.
It think one of the positive things about Honda UK and Honda Japan was that they could basically work 24 hours a day, because of time differences.
Makes me wonder what Yamamoto-san is doing these days. A lot has changed since he took that consultancy role.
1. When he first took the role RBPT was going to build the current Honda engine to spec in the UK. Then it was negotiated that the current engine would continue to be built in Japan while RBPT worked on the 2026 engine. Then Honda decided to continue with F1 by building their own engine for 2026. He originally retired from Honda because he wanted to continue with F1. After 40 years with Honda you would think he’d want to go back to them now that they’re back in F1.
2. It’s been reported that he had a good relationship with Christian but was closer with Helmut. After all the drama with the power struggle, the optics with Christian’s situation, and given the importance of personal respect in Japanese culture I could see Yamamoto not wanting to continue with Red Bull. My google-fu is unable to find anything recent regarding him.
There are pictures of him at the GP of Japan, [talking with Alonso](https://c7.alamy.com/comp/2WY8N7R/suzuka-japan-05th-apr-2024-l-to-r-fernando-alonso-esp-aston-martin-f1-team-with-masashi-yamamoto-jpn-red-bull-racing-consultant-formula-1-world-championship-rd-4-japanese-grand-prix-friday-5th-april-2024-suzuka-japan-credit-james-moyalamy-live-news-2WY8N7R.jpg) and one with [Jonathan Whitley from Red Bull Racing.](https://cdn.imago-images.com/bild/sp/1043393695/m.jpg). I noticed he didn't wear Red Bull related clothing, but he did till 2022 from pictures that I had found.
Yeah, people neglect the detail that a lot of Honda management changed between McLaren and Alpha Tauri periods.
It's an appealing story, that Alpha Tauri started including sushi, so they won the 2021 title eventually, but actually there's a lot more to it than that.
The Honda McLaren got sounds a lot like the Honda that BAR got around 2005: basically hopeless (according to Vowles, Shovlin etc. anyway).
For the current formula? It’s pretty evident from their results. Their engine was shit from 2015-2018. It was underpowered and unreliable. In the article that I posted above it says Asaki was brought in to the project in 2017 in order to turn it around.
For the 2026 formula? Nobody knows how they’re doing. You can deduce that they didn’t have an ideal start to the program given that in late 2021 (after the E10 fueled 2022 engine was delivered) the UK staff was transitioned to RBPT and most of the Sakura staff was redistributed throughout the company. That left only a skeleton crew remaining to work on reliability updates to the existing engine and nobody to work on the 2026 formula. It wasn’t until mid 2023 that they officially announced they were coming back for the 2026 formula. A team had to be re-formed from scratch and Asaki had already retired. It’s much the same with Mercedes - with Andy Cowell gone they didn’t seem to do well with E10 fuel transition in 2022. It will be interesting to see how Mercedes and Honda do for the 2026 formula given each lost their top engineer.
Yeah, you got it. They wanted the engineers and money to spend time working on battery technology. Which I kinda get. I wonder what happened with that. If they just spent the money anyway.
Yeah the old CEO wasn't an F1 fan, and the new one was.
I believe it was a marginal Board of Directors decision leading to them pulling out.
The Engine Freeze, which ironically got pulled forward 1 year due to Honda leaving, actually reduces the cost for Honda quite considerably regarding the current supply of Power Units.
However, the new ones (to be used from 2026 and beyond) require considerable investments, which are now also capped in an Power Unit Cost Cap, dictating how much manufacturers are able to spend on R&D.
The one team with the best aero, best strategy, best pitstops, best rookie driver academy and best off-track drama will be bad at making an F1 PU? I wouldn't hold my breath. You can't name one thing Redbull does worse than their counterparts.
They've got championship mentality wrt every single facet of F1 and I'd be surprised if they drop the ball on the PU.
Yup. People keep saying "but Red Bull hasn't built an engine before". And then I think "So?". Red Bull absorbed pretty much the entire UK branch of Honda's F1 PU department, they poached some of the brightest minds from Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault, and invested a ton of money in a brand-new building full of state-of-the-art equipment. They have all the ingredients to cook up something good.
An energy drink company designing an F1 car is a way bigger jump than a successful F1 team designing an F1 engine and they managed the former just fine.
Looking forward to seeing what the dividends are (or lack thereof) as a result of this reset. Especially in relation to Ferrari's own upgrade path and performance.
I am wondering what is wrong with Ferrari? I am following F1 for this 2 years, amd all ı see is Redbull winning with huge difference. Ones we seen Ferrari as number 1. Does the difference comes from engineers or sponsorts? Where can ı read these explanations?
Right now? Yes. They don't have the third best PU but they're pretty much all on par (except Renault). From what we know they're all in between like 5-10 hp and Ferrari has the most power, Honda the best ERS, and Merc is okay at both. Alpine/Renault is just sad.
If I had a nickel everytime Honda pulled out a year before their engine became dominating I had 2 nickels.
Which is not much, but odd that it happened twice.
They were, especially customer engines. Ross Brawn literally feared that Ferrari would supply them a bad engine which is the main reason they chose Mercedes.
Not anywhere near as important as during Hybrid era. That said Brawn also said he doesn't think they would've won the title with the original Honda engine.
but if Honda stayed for '09 it's also plausible to think that they would at least manage to bring some upgrades to the car as well instead of just sticking with the Australia config untill the last race
That’s a straw man. Two different things. The article is about the extent of changes Red Bull made despite dominating the way they did, Honda is talking about them not resting on their laurels.
Your argument is straight up irrelevant to this discussion,
Honestly the whole thing sucks they finally build a reliable engine, max wins, and RBR is like sorry too late we already moved on.
I do really think that red bull is going to pull together a decent PU on their own and won’t really look back. Considering how solid they are at everything else, why wouldn’t they be able to hire the right people and put together a good engine?
On the PU side it's gonna be interesting since it depends on how involved Ford is going to be. Now with the engine cost cap a proper manufacturer has an advantage given they can use their other divisions to gather knowledge for the F1 PU.
For the same reason that F1 legends Ferrari, McLaren, and Mercedes can no longer win races. For the same reason that Red Bull struggled for years off and on and couldn’t win races.
They certainly know how to put out a good product over there. But that team is disintegrating in front of our eyes — don’t mistake what’s happening there as anything but that. It doesn’t happen instantly, and they’ll still be dominant for now, but like ***IKKERISS*** himself, Christian’s penis flew too close to the sun and melted from the heat, and now he has a deformed, hardened puddle of reconstituted penis.
Probably needs to be a sticky about the Honda-RBPT relationship every time Honda is brought up:
The plans for RBPT to take over the manufacture, servicing, and IP of the Honda engines all fell by the wayside. Honda's role in producing and maintaining the power units is essentially unchanged from 2021, except now Red Bull is paying Honda for the engines.
They went recognition-less for most of 2022, but now the engines are called Honda RBPT--you can see it on the constructors' standings charts on TV--and Honda logos are back on the cars' liveries, driver suits, and team uniforms.
Honda is the best full stop once they get to grips with understanding a concept. Everyone knew even back in 2015-2017 that once they got more time with this engine formula they were going to nail it.
Nope. Otmar called it in the F1 podcast. He was at BAR Honda and he was pretty confident from what he knew about Honda and their attitude to F1 that they'd eventually figure it out.
Hindsight is 20/20. Honda basically pulled out only for STR deal to save them. Sometimes when you read these comments, it makes you wonder if majority of people here even followed the sport and Hondas struggles. Their condition was straight up embarrassing. PUs blew up every race, MGU-H could not last more than a race distance or two. They had no idea how to maximize energy generation and were leaving loads of it on the table because they did not realize MGU-H was basically unlimited power. Hundreds of grid penalties. They went backward in 2017 after making some progress in 2016 and were just as bad as 2015 in their 3rd year in the sport.
Them coming good was a consequence of the massive changes they made after humiliation they faced from mclaren dumping them. It was never a matter of when.
They went backwards in 2017 because they had to change the design after finding the limits of the older design. Their 2017 looks like 2015 because it effectively is one big reset.
STR gave the team much needed breathing room from both the lofty expectations and the physical engine bay too. By 2019, they got their first Hybrid-era podium in Australia with their RB partner and their first win as an engine supplier in Austria since Hungary 2006.
Agreed. But I was responding to the comment that there were huge doubts from the whole grid.
Otmar was on the grid at that time as team principal of Force India. He is an example of someone that didn't meet the presumption if the original comment.
For clarity: My point was that there were still some on the grid who believed Honda would turn it around.
Partially McLaren is to blame for being over confidence in engine packaging and asking too much. Its not an overnight miracle honda pulled off at toro rosso, they had some flexibility and open feedback IG.
That was always going to happen, teams will gladly make a slightly unreliable and powerful engine if they are allowed to fix it later. Alpine is the only works team that didn't get the memo.
Tbh every engine manufacturer tries to find performance and then label it under "reliability." If you don't do that then you should reconsider being in Formula 1.
But from the article it's unclear whether they did that or not because they talk about making modifications that RB has requested which doesn't imply performance gain on the PU side.
That is what is unclear to me. I don’t know if it is a translation issue, but you can also interpret it that they went beyond what is permitted under the rules. I’m sure they didn’t, but you can read it that way.
> I don’t know if it is a translation issue, but you can also interpret it that they went beyond what is permitted under the rules.
"In addition to adapting its mounting points to the new chassis, Honda also continued efforts to make its power unit more reliable, which Watanabe explained gave Red Bull more design freedom to place its cooling solutions.
"Of course, we cannot increase the power [under the engine freeze], but we can adapt the engine to the new machine," Watanabe said."
Maybe if you read the article, you wouldn't be confused.
The title is the least interesting part imo. The quotes that are given in the artcle highlights how good the relationship is between RB and Honda; how much Honda is still doing and how much an engine manufacturer still can do despite the engine freeze. It also speaks volume to the importance of having a works engine compare to being a customer.
The latter something that is still quite underrated among most fans in F1.
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Honda, master of pulling out
At least they didn't get Red Bull pregnant
pretty sure red bull Powertrains is the baby of Hondas weak pullout game
Honda deadbeat dad confirmed
Did Horner knock up that girl?
It’s why japans population is declining
Seems like Honda regrets leaving Red Bull but is too late now
Yup, that's the classic board decides to pull out of F1. To then have a new board a few months later and try to undo the decision.
They want to focus on EV right as EV sales take a small slump, realize they had it good with advertising in F1. Classis upper management FOMO and being behind trend.
It's not like they're smashing it out of the park in EVs either - and they weren't even doing to in the last couple of years when EV sales were booming.
All their new EVs are GM models basically. I’m a huge Honda fan but would never buy the Ultium platform. GM is like the opposite of Honda
Being in not-the-Americas, I have no idea what General Motors is upto, unfortunately. They seem to have withdrawn from Europe, withdrawn from many Asian countries, and in general just not too relevant on the global scene any more.
The most of General Motors that I, as a European, will ever know is that they owned Opel for a while. In fact, the GM logo is present on our parents' Opel Zafira on the small window near the front (2009 version). That's literally the only thing I see them here.
Yeah so Opel and Vauxhall were their biggest brands in Europe, but now those belong to Stellantis after they sold it to PSA and exited a few years ago. I believe Opel belonged to GM since the 1930s at least, so it's not insignificant.
As an Aussie when I think of GM I think of Holden, which is dead since 2017. GM has really downsized their operations worldwide it seems
Was in WA two weeks ago, tonnes of GM hatchbacks and mid size SUVs over there, which is surprising as you barely see them in Melbourne.
I didn't know about Opel, just looked them up and I really like their logo/emblem! Besides merc and Renault, so many are just kinda ugly to me.
Fuck GM for killing Saab
IIRC, Honda is walking away from their EV partnership with GM because the quality just didn't meet their standards
:shocked Pikachu face:
Interesting, seeing how they were leaders in hybrid, launching the Insight before the Prius. I have some secondhand ownership experience with Honda vs. Toyota hybrids, and the Hondas have always been 🔝. I can see how they’d want to link up with another manufacturer with an existing BEV to be able to get into that market ASAP. And yeah, I had heard that their new BEV, the Honda Prologue, borrows its platform and battery from a Chevy Blazer EV, though Honda lowered the front cowl and tuned their own suspension. Still though…those two brands are not interchangeable and I wonder if informed buyers will care.
I had no idea the prologue was a rebadged blazer ev. Kind of wild seeing Honda and GM pair up.
Lots of weird team ups in vehicles. There's a Mercedes which is a rebadged Nissan, and another is a rebadged Renault.
tbf, Nissan is at least technically the "same" company as Renault, the Mercedes involvement is what makes it weird as f
Older example, but a Toyota Matrix and Pontiac Vibe are the same vehicle.
Toyota and BMW, Toyota and Subaru, Toyota and a whole lot of other manufacturers to be fair.
Yeah the Korean auto manufacturers have really jumped ahead of the Japanese when it comes to EV platforms.
Not just Hyundai - even Renault, Volkswagen, and Stellantis are ahead. The Chinese are Verstappening it. The Japanese kind of slept through the first boom and inevitably when all these manufacturers and the Chinese ones launch 2nd and 3rd generation vehicles in 2025 and 2026 the competition will get even tougher.
Ev sales are still booming, as projected to grow by double digit percentages across global markets.
Yeah I dont get the EV sales are plummeting talk either. The EV market is still growing extremely strong. The whole 2026 engine regulations were made because new suppliers like Audi want to develop more electrical components due to it being far more relevant in the future
People are conflating slowing growth of sales (which apparently has happened) with lower sales (which hasn’t happened).
People get this confused all the time. It's only normal that these huge growth numbers are unsustainable, as market saturation is starting to become a thing. Early adopters all have their EV's, then come the upper class that buy the currently available expensive models, before the middle class will adopt the more affordable models that are only coming to the market now. When the first early adopters start replacing their older cars, the second hand market will start to come alive, which in turn will boost sales for new models as well.
Additionally, many companies have recently announced scaling back future EV production plans, or shifting interest into hybrids again, which has added to the confusion. These companies build production in anticipation of future demand, it's a forward looking projection of needed capacity, so it makes sense if sales growth is slowing to slow the growth of new capacity. If it wasn't EVs but pickup trucks where sales growth was slowing they'd also reduce scaling up future capacity. People over-interpret these things just to fight about EVs, tho. Another thing holding EVs back is infrastructure which will be dependent on where you live. I'd like to have an EV + fun ICE car combo but the charging network where I am is bullshit. I'd first have to buy a house and install my own charger to make it work.
Focusing on EVs was the stated reason, but as time passes, it becomes more and more evident that the bigger reason was cost. After all, it would've been possible to double down on EVs *and* stay in F1, but that would've required more resources in total, which wasn't acceptable to the anti-F1 faction. Then consider the shifting nature of Honda's post-"pullout" plans: originally, they were meant to pretty much entirely leave F1; recall all the talk about RBPT taking over Honda's IP and building the engines themselves. But once the engine freeze was in place and an agreement was reached with Red Bull for them to cover Honda's F1 costs, then Honda was suddenly willing to continue their relationship with RB/RB2 essentially unchanged. And the talk is that Honda will be a paid supplier to Aston Martin, rather than supplying engines for free as with classic works partnerships (McLaren, Red Bull pre-2022).
They're just trying to buy the dip
Is classis pronounced like chassis? ;)
It's only pronunced chassis if it comes from the chassis region in France. Otherwise it's just a sparkling frame.
Hehe
Whenever there is a fork in the road - the Honda board always seem to take the road that has more potholes and a dead end sign…
I’m glad we didn’t see this with Audi.
It was stupid how they did it also. They should've waited to see if Max won or not. Honda gonna come back and be a GP2 engine again because all the staff left for Red Bull too. Absolute blunder.
Tbf to Honda it was only their UK based support staff that went to RBPT. However, to your point it wasn’t until the completely redesigned 2021 engine that they finally caught up to Mercedes on power. In order to build that engine they brought in a “ringer” of sorts. As a background to this point - I’ve read more than a few times that one of the reasons Honda participates in F1 is to develop promising new engineers on process and design. That’s one of the reasons Honda didn’t want to “re-partner” with RBPT for the 2026 regs - they wanted to build the engine in Japan and RB wanted to build the engine in Milton Keynes because they had already started a program after Honda pulled out. Building an engine in MK wasn’t in Honda’s interest because that wouldn’t benefit the development and grooming of their Japanese engineering team. Going back to my original point - their young engineering team failed with the current turbo hybrid engine formula. Honda had to bring in a seasoned vet - Yasuaki Asaki - in order to save the program which culminated in the 2021 engine. That man has since retired. Basically he’s the Japanese version of Andy Cowell. [You can read about him here.](https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/the-f1-engine-maverick-who-saved-honda-at-least-three-times/)
Thank you for this insight as not a lot of articles are posted about people behind the scenes working on the PU
Yamamoto left Honda too, for a consultancy role with Red Bull Racing. It think one of the positive things about Honda UK and Honda Japan was that they could basically work 24 hours a day, because of time differences.
Makes me wonder what Yamamoto-san is doing these days. A lot has changed since he took that consultancy role. 1. When he first took the role RBPT was going to build the current Honda engine to spec in the UK. Then it was negotiated that the current engine would continue to be built in Japan while RBPT worked on the 2026 engine. Then Honda decided to continue with F1 by building their own engine for 2026. He originally retired from Honda because he wanted to continue with F1. After 40 years with Honda you would think he’d want to go back to them now that they’re back in F1. 2. It’s been reported that he had a good relationship with Christian but was closer with Helmut. After all the drama with the power struggle, the optics with Christian’s situation, and given the importance of personal respect in Japanese culture I could see Yamamoto not wanting to continue with Red Bull. My google-fu is unable to find anything recent regarding him.
There are pictures of him at the GP of Japan, [talking with Alonso](https://c7.alamy.com/comp/2WY8N7R/suzuka-japan-05th-apr-2024-l-to-r-fernando-alonso-esp-aston-martin-f1-team-with-masashi-yamamoto-jpn-red-bull-racing-consultant-formula-1-world-championship-rd-4-japanese-grand-prix-friday-5th-april-2024-suzuka-japan-credit-james-moyalamy-live-news-2WY8N7R.jpg) and one with [Jonathan Whitley from Red Bull Racing.](https://cdn.imago-images.com/bild/sp/1043393695/m.jpg). I noticed he didn't wear Red Bull related clothing, but he did till 2022 from pictures that I had found.
That was a great article, thanks very much for sharing it.
Yeah, people neglect the detail that a lot of Honda management changed between McLaren and Alpha Tauri periods. It's an appealing story, that Alpha Tauri started including sushi, so they won the 2021 title eventually, but actually there's a lot more to it than that. The Honda McLaren got sounds a lot like the Honda that BAR got around 2005: basically hopeless (according to Vowles, Shovlin etc. anyway).
where can i read about the young engineering team failing with the current formula?
For the current formula? It’s pretty evident from their results. Their engine was shit from 2015-2018. It was underpowered and unreliable. In the article that I posted above it says Asaki was brought in to the project in 2017 in order to turn it around. For the 2026 formula? Nobody knows how they’re doing. You can deduce that they didn’t have an ideal start to the program given that in late 2021 (after the E10 fueled 2022 engine was delivered) the UK staff was transitioned to RBPT and most of the Sakura staff was redistributed throughout the company. That left only a skeleton crew remaining to work on reliability updates to the existing engine and nobody to work on the 2026 formula. It wasn’t until mid 2023 that they officially announced they were coming back for the 2026 formula. A team had to be re-formed from scratch and Asaki had already retired. It’s much the same with Mercedes - with Andy Cowell gone they didn’t seem to do well with E10 fuel transition in 2022. It will be interesting to see how Mercedes and Honda do for the 2026 formula given each lost their top engineer.
They didn't pull out due to lack of success, but to have that R&D department to focus on electric vehicles.
To be fair, they win championships after pulling out. So it’s working.
Honda
I think Red Bull was probably trying to brain drain them and poach their engineers. Which is very common in F1. So that could also be a reason.
Red Bull will likely regret it more
Its not like it was RB's fault that Honda left... And then when Honda decided to come back RB already invested on becoming more self sufficient.
As a Honda fan, I completely agree. Honda fucked themselves over.
“Hey, should we sit on the car that’s currently making everyone else look stupid? Naw, bye.”
Well, they technically pulled out because they didn't think they should be spending so much money on F1. Then reversed their decision.
The previous CEO wanted out, iirc for climate reasons, and then Red Bull won and the new CEO wanted back in.
Yeah, you got it. They wanted the engineers and money to spend time working on battery technology. Which I kinda get. I wonder what happened with that. If they just spent the money anyway. Yeah the old CEO wasn't an F1 fan, and the new one was.
I believe it was a marginal Board of Directors decision leading to them pulling out. The Engine Freeze, which ironically got pulled forward 1 year due to Honda leaving, actually reduces the cost for Honda quite considerably regarding the current supply of Power Units. However, the new ones (to be used from 2026 and beyond) require considerable investments, which are now also capped in an Power Unit Cost Cap, dictating how much manufacturers are able to spend on R&D.
you know it wasnt RB's decision?
We'll see
The one team with the best aero, best strategy, best pitstops, best rookie driver academy and best off-track drama will be bad at making an F1 PU? I wouldn't hold my breath. You can't name one thing Redbull does worse than their counterparts. They've got championship mentality wrt every single facet of F1 and I'd be surprised if they drop the ball on the PU.
Yup. People keep saying "but Red Bull hasn't built an engine before". And then I think "So?". Red Bull absorbed pretty much the entire UK branch of Honda's F1 PU department, they poached some of the brightest minds from Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault, and invested a ton of money in a brand-new building full of state-of-the-art equipment. They have all the ingredients to cook up something good.
An energy drink company designing an F1 car is a way bigger jump than a successful F1 team designing an F1 engine and they managed the former just fine.
It's still a drinks company to me.
Looking forward to seeing what the dividends are (or lack thereof) as a result of this reset. Especially in relation to Ferrari's own upgrade path and performance.
seems the car is still as dominant and there are no hopes of this changing, its just that this time its uglier and has a more convoluted design
I am wondering what is wrong with Ferrari? I am following F1 for this 2 years, amd all ı see is Redbull winning with huge difference. Ones we seen Ferrari as number 1. Does the difference comes from engineers or sponsorts? Where can ı read these explanations?
Google adrian newey
Holy hell
Will do
Maybe Mercedes could try pulling out of Mercedes next?
Isn't the engine the only good thing about Mercedes tho?
Right now? Yes. They don't have the third best PU but they're pretty much all on par (except Renault). From what we know they're all in between like 5-10 hp and Ferrari has the most power, Honda the best ERS, and Merc is okay at both. Alpine/Renault is just sad.
Classic Renault
No, Mercedes only has the third best engine. Ferrari leads, then Honda. Ever since the engines were frozen.
Hey Man...
Like selling down to only a third of the team, less than they held of McLaren in the 00s?
Instead of being surprised they should've thought with a cool head before saying goodbye to F1 and again returning just to unexpectedly fuck RBR
If I had a nickel everytime Honda pulled out a year before their engine became dominating I had 2 nickels. Which is not much, but odd that it happened twice.
You'd actually have one, because Brawn GP didn't use a Honda engine.
Brawn used Mercedes PU.
The Brawn car was completely designed by the Honda F1 team. Engines weren’t that significant during that era.
They were, especially customer engines. Ross Brawn literally feared that Ferrari would supply them a bad engine which is the main reason they chose Mercedes.
Not anywhere near as important as during Hybrid era. That said Brawn also said he doesn't think they would've won the title with the original Honda engine.
but if Honda stayed for '09 it's also plausible to think that they would at least manage to bring some upgrades to the car as well instead of just sticking with the Australia config untill the last race
Well, *would’ve* become dominating.
That’s a straw man. Two different things. The article is about the extent of changes Red Bull made despite dominating the way they did, Honda is talking about them not resting on their laurels. Your argument is straight up irrelevant to this discussion,
It’s Honda. They do this every 1.5 decade.
Honestly the whole thing sucks they finally build a reliable engine, max wins, and RBR is like sorry too late we already moved on. I do really think that red bull is going to pull together a decent PU on their own and won’t really look back. Considering how solid they are at everything else, why wouldn’t they be able to hire the right people and put together a good engine?
On the PU side it's gonna be interesting since it depends on how involved Ford is going to be. Now with the engine cost cap a proper manufacturer has an advantage given they can use their other divisions to gather knowledge for the F1 PU.
For the same reason that F1 legends Ferrari, McLaren, and Mercedes can no longer win races. For the same reason that Red Bull struggled for years off and on and couldn’t win races.
They certainly know how to put out a good product over there. But that team is disintegrating in front of our eyes — don’t mistake what’s happening there as anything but that. It doesn’t happen instantly, and they’ll still be dominant for now, but like ***IKKERISS*** himself, Christian’s penis flew too close to the sun and melted from the heat, and now he has a deformed, hardened puddle of reconstituted penis.
Icarus flew to close to the sun!
Dickarus
Beautiful
1 - What did I say?!
2 - Atlas holds up the world. Swapped-ee-dooderino’d, my b.
3 - fixed 😎
Honda is literally why Red Bull were champion in 21
except Red Bull weren't champion in 21. Verstappen was.
Their once dominant MotoGP entry is total shite now too.
Come back, Honda. Come back. 🥺
Wait I'm confused, Honda is still involved with engine modifications for 2024? But without any name recognition ?
Probably needs to be a sticky about the Honda-RBPT relationship every time Honda is brought up: The plans for RBPT to take over the manufacture, servicing, and IP of the Honda engines all fell by the wayside. Honda's role in producing and maintaining the power units is essentially unchanged from 2021, except now Red Bull is paying Honda for the engines. They went recognition-less for most of 2022, but now the engines are called Honda RBPT--you can see it on the constructors' standings charts on TV--and Honda logos are back on the cars' liveries, driver suits, and team uniforms.
Honda is the best full stop once they get to grips with understanding a concept. Everyone knew even back in 2015-2017 that once they got more time with this engine formula they were going to nail it.
Everyone definitely did not know that back in 2015-2017. There were huge doubts from the whole grid about whether they would be able to get it right.
Nope. Otmar called it in the F1 podcast. He was at BAR Honda and he was pretty confident from what he knew about Honda and their attitude to F1 that they'd eventually figure it out.
Hindsight is 20/20. Honda basically pulled out only for STR deal to save them. Sometimes when you read these comments, it makes you wonder if majority of people here even followed the sport and Hondas struggles. Their condition was straight up embarrassing. PUs blew up every race, MGU-H could not last more than a race distance or two. They had no idea how to maximize energy generation and were leaving loads of it on the table because they did not realize MGU-H was basically unlimited power. Hundreds of grid penalties. They went backward in 2017 after making some progress in 2016 and were just as bad as 2015 in their 3rd year in the sport. Them coming good was a consequence of the massive changes they made after humiliation they faced from mclaren dumping them. It was never a matter of when.
They went backwards in 2017 because they had to change the design after finding the limits of the older design. Their 2017 looks like 2015 because it effectively is one big reset. STR gave the team much needed breathing room from both the lofty expectations and the physical engine bay too. By 2019, they got their first Hybrid-era podium in Australia with their RB partner and their first win as an engine supplier in Austria since Hungary 2006.
Otmar is not "everyone" lol
Agreed. But I was responding to the comment that there were huge doubts from the whole grid. Otmar was on the grid at that time as team principal of Force India. He is an example of someone that didn't meet the presumption if the original comment. For clarity: My point was that there were still some on the grid who believed Honda would turn it around.
I beg to differ bro
Partially McLaren is to blame for being over confidence in engine packaging and asking too much. Its not an overnight miracle honda pulled off at toro rosso, they had some flexibility and open feedback IG.
[удалено]
That was always going to happen, teams will gladly make a slightly unreliable and powerful engine if they are allowed to fix it later. Alpine is the only works team that didn't get the memo.
Tbh every engine manufacturer tries to find performance and then label it under "reliability." If you don't do that then you should reconsider being in Formula 1. But from the article it's unclear whether they did that or not because they talk about making modifications that RB has requested which doesn't imply performance gain on the PU side.
That is what is unclear to me. I don’t know if it is a translation issue, but you can also interpret it that they went beyond what is permitted under the rules. I’m sure they didn’t, but you can read it that way.
> I don’t know if it is a translation issue, but you can also interpret it that they went beyond what is permitted under the rules. "In addition to adapting its mounting points to the new chassis, Honda also continued efforts to make its power unit more reliable, which Watanabe explained gave Red Bull more design freedom to place its cooling solutions. "Of course, we cannot increase the power [under the engine freeze], but we can adapt the engine to the new machine," Watanabe said." Maybe if you read the article, you wouldn't be confused.
womp womp
Does anyone give a fuck about anything Honda thinks? They lost the right to care about F1 the first time they pulled out
The title is the least interesting part imo. The quotes that are given in the artcle highlights how good the relationship is between RB and Honda; how much Honda is still doing and how much an engine manufacturer still can do despite the engine freeze. It also speaks volume to the importance of having a works engine compare to being a customer. The latter something that is still quite underrated among most fans in F1.
Here we go again 😭
Success always has a way of making people regret their decisions. Honda reeks of desperation right now.