Honda Partners With IHI to Accelerate F1 Turbo Development
Honda has announced a strengthened partnership with IHI, a Japanese industrial company, which it hopes will provide “a notable step up in performance” for the 2019 Formula One season.
The two companies have been working together since 2015 and have announced an updated two-year technical partnership regarding the developing and supply of turbocharger-related components.
The new deal will go into effect from 2019 as Honda prepares to provide engines to both Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso, the first time it supplies more than one team since its return to the sport.
Japan’s IHI is one of the world’s leaders in rotating machinery technology, which it has developed through its shipbuilding and steam turbine business. “We expect this partnership to produce a notable step up in performance,” said Katsuhide Moriyama, chief officer of brand and communications at Honda. “Together, we will keep pushing for wins.”
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IHI’s Yoshinori Kawasaki hopes that by accelerating turbocharger development, the new technical partnership will help Honda’s F1 power unit deliver the best possible performance. “We hope that as from the 2019 season, Honda’s power unit, using the IHI turbocharger, will deliver the sort of performance that thrilled motorsport fans back in the 80s and 90s,” he said.
Honda was famously the most dominant engine manufacturer of the period, having been — in affiliation with Williams, Lotus, and McLaren — behind every constructor title from 1986 to 1991, and every driver title from 1987 to 1991, including 69 Grand Prix victories. Most notably, the 1988 McLaren-Honda won all races it entered but one (as a result of driver error), a record that stands to this day.
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