The successful partnership between Red Bull Racing and Honda is definitely at an end after the 2025 Formula 1 season, but until then both parties will do everything they can to continue achieving as much success together as possible. The Japanese engine supplier assured this at a press meeting announcing the departure of front-runner Yasuaki Asaki.
In 2026, Red Bull will enter into a partnership with Ford, but for the next three F1 seasons, the team will continue to work closely with Honda. On the weekend of the 2022 Japanese Grand Prix, the two sides even announced that they would intensify their cooperation. As part of this, the engines in 2023 will be called Honda RBPT, as announced at the time.
"The power unit’s name has changed – it’s now a Red Bull Powertrains power unit – but the technology or the IP is really Honda’s," the outgoing Asaki is quoted by Racer.com. "The manufacturing of this power unit is still going to be mainly done by Honda."
Honda plans to start supplying engines to another F1 team in 2026, but nothing is fixed about that yet. Until then, the Japanese manufacturer will focus entirely on getting good results with Red Bull. "Honda and Red Bull until 2025 will continue to have trust and a great partnership and we aim to win the championship until 2025," said HRC president Koji Watanabe.
"After 2026 and onward Red Bull will partner with Ford and we are not in a position to say anything about that. But in other racing series we have the partnership with Red Bull, so we continue to work together," Watanabe said.
"The power unit’s name has changed – it’s now a Red Bull Powertrains power unit – but the technology or the IP is really Honda’s," the outgoing Asaki is quoted by Racer.com. "The manufacturing of this power unit is still going to be mainly done by Honda."
Whats to happen after 2025, I wonder
Redbull Power trains will design and manufacture ICE and Electrical part mainly batteries will be supplied by Ford.
The name of new PU for this year is Honda RBPT H001. The suffixes after H will change each year until 2025.
The reliability issues which Honda encountered while recovering the power loss due to E10 fuel have been fixed. Power deployment of MGU-K has been optimised as well. Other improvements include updated software package, precision of parts in terms of manufacturing, quality inspection, governance, as well as the precision power unit assembly.