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Verstappen in awe of engine supplier: 'They never gave up!'
- Sandy van Wijngaarden
Max Verstappen has been driving with a Honda engine at Red Bull for a long time now. After highs and lows, their parternership is about to end after 2025, as Red Bull will create their own engines together with Ford, while Honda will team up with Aston Martin. Talking to Viaplay, the Dutchman praised the Japanese engine provider.
When Verstappen got promoted to Red Bull in 2016, the team were running still with Renault engines, but soon after, as the Austrians parted way with the French supplier having a notoriously poor relationship with them, and they opted for Honda.
Verstappen immediately enthusiastic about entering Honda
Nevertheless, Verstappen was immediately enthusiastic when he heard about to change. "I was very excited myself actually when Helmut told me that Honda was coming on board. It gave new energy within the team," the Dutchman said in the Viaplay-documentary '10 Years of Verstappen'.
"We had a tour in Japan, in Sakura. There you just saw that the potential was really there. We just had to find a few people to bring the whole project together. That obviously worked out well in the end," Verstappen added.
Honda's mentality made the difference, according to the Red Bull Racing driver. "The very first win was so emotional for them. Just whining in the garage. For them, of course, that was really satisfying, because they had a really difficult start returning to Formula 1. But they never gave up. I think that is also typical of the Japanese mentality."
Despite the fact that their partnership will end soon, Verstappen looks back on his time with Honda fondly. "They will never give up and sometimes Europeans can really just learn something from that. That is also nice to see with the engineers, for example. You do work together with a lot of different cultures and it does work. I really enjoy being part of that," Verstappen said.
This article was written in collaboration with Kada Sarkozi
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