RED BULL’S POST-HONDA FUTURE

Honda’s bombshell decision to quit Formula 1 at the end of 2021, announced last autumn, left Red Bull in a serious bind. The team either had to find a way to take control of Honda’s engine programme and bring it in house or become a customer team again.

Mercedes quickly ruled out supplying its direct rival (no surprise there), citing lack of spare capacity, while a deal with Ferrari looked unlikely for similar reasons and carried real risk of being a backwards step for Red Bull, so ‘customer status’ really meant ‘returning to Renault engines’ – escape from which was the whole point of Red Bull linking up with Honda in the first place…

Red Bull’s preference was to take over Honda’s engines and run the programme in house, but the eye-watering costs associated with this plan were a serious sticking point – capital expenditure to construct and staff an engine facility, plus yearly development costs on the power unit itself.

So began Red Bull’s push to return to frozen engine specifications from 2022 onwards, plus a mechanism to balance performance should there be any outliers at the start of said freeze.

Eventually F1’s stakeholders agreed to Red Bull’s demands (see Insider), paving the way for Red Bull to acquire the IP for Honda’s engine design and commit to transforming itself into a full-blown manufacturer team.

This is no stop-gap solution. Red Bull is not minding Honda’s engines until the end of the current rules cycle, waiting for the Japanese manufacturer to return in 2025. Red Bull is investing in a new division – Red Bull Powertrains – that will also work on designing and building new Red Bull-badged engines from 2025 onwards, just as Mercedes HPP in Brackley would do, though Red Bull is open to working with another manufacturer on these new rules, should an “exciting partner” (Porsche?) come along.

In the near term, according to Red Bull team principal Christian Horner, Honda will bring forward developments originally scheduled for 2022 to help Red Bull get a head start with the current engines. Honda will also work with fuel supplier Exxon-mobil throughout 2021 to prepare for the introduction of

E10 sustainable fuels next season.

In the meantime, Red Bull needs to recruit a team to run its new engine division, which will also need to supply power units to sister squad Alphatauri. Horner says some existing Red Bull staff will be reallocated, some inherited from Honda, and others recruited.

“We will inherit the vast majority of HRD UK, the operational side of Honda based in Milton Keynes,” Horner says. “That gives us a standing start, and we are in the process of setting out some of the other roles that will be filled in the coming weeks and months. The agreement we’ve achieved with Honda buys us time to assemble the right group of people.”

Horner confirmed Red Bull has “candidates in mind” for senior roles, such as technical director, managing director and operations director, and he heaped praise on former Mercedes chief Andy Cowell, who left HPP at the start of this year, and the Ilmor organisation co-founded by Mario Illien, which currently works with Honda. But Horner said his understanding was Cowell’s interests now lie “outside of F1” while Ilmor would be attractive to work with but for the fact it currently has “exclusive contracts” with… Honda…

One company definitely on Red Bull’s books is AVL, a Graz-based specialist engineering firm steeped in motorsport expertise, which will help spec the new Milton Keynes facility with engine dynos and other vital equipment.

This a serious undertaking from Red Bull; an expensive expansion, funded by company owner Dietrich Mateschitz. Most importantly, in Horner’s words, “it’s safeguarded the commitment of Red Bull to F1 for the foreseeable future”.

“THIS IS NO STOP-GAP SOLUTION. RED BULL IS NOT MINDING HONDA’S ENGINES UNTIL THE END OF THE CURRENT RULES CYCLE, WAITING FOR THE JAPANESE MANUFACTURER TO RETURN”