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Horner: Formula 1 Engine Promises Finally Kept by Honda

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Red Bull-Honda RB15
Photo: Spencer Davis | Unsplash

Christian Horner, team principal for Red Bull Racing, says the Formula One team was much happier with Honda in 2019 than with Renault in previous years, as the Japanese manufacturer actually kept its engine promises.

Though Red Bull won four titles on the trot from 2010 to 2013 with Renault, the French manufacturer struggled to compete in the post-2013 V6 turbo-hybrid engine era, and its relationship with Red Bull quickly deteriorated.

After Red Bull struck a new partnership with Honda, it immediately benefited from a better reliability and performance record. According to Horner, “this is the first year where everything that was promised was absolutely delivered.”

“Obviously we saw an awful lot of spreadsheets over the years, from Viry,” he said, referring to Renault’s engine headquarters, “but never realized the potential of what was on those sheets.”

“It’s just a different environment, it’s a different type of partnership,” he added about Honda. “It’s a true partnership, and you can see what it means to Honda when they get a result, when they get a pole position and they get a victory, the emotion, the pride, the satisfaction throughout the whole business. So I think it’s a very, very different relationship to the one we previously had with Renault during this V6 turbo-hybrid era.”

Honda planned and delivered three upgrades in 2019, each offering measurable improvements, in sharp contrast to Renault, who would often make noise about big upcoming gains that would then fail to materialize.


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Statistically, however, Red Bull Racing did not fare much better in 2019 than in 2018, though this has more to do with the sudden departure of star driver Daniel Ricciardo and two drivers sharing the seat he left behind.

Max Verstappen, in the other Red Bull, had his best season in F1 so far, finishing third in the championship and scoring more points than ever before in his career. He also won three races, one more than his best in a single year, and was quickest in qualifying three times, earning his first-ever pole at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

“We’ve achieved three poles on the track this year, we’ve won three races,” Horner said. “We could have won arguably in Monaco, we should have won in Mexico. Austin we were quick. So we’ve had a really good race car a lot of circuits this year.”

“The progression from Honda, with each engine that they’ve introduced and together with our fuel partner, the whole thing is working in harmony. So rather than to get fighting, always feeling very much as a customer, it’s been a true partnership. And they share the same goals and objectives as we do. You’re seeing the benefits of that.”

Red Bull initially had a two-year deal with Honda, but it was recently announced that had been extended by another two years through 2021, with talks ongoing for 2022 and 2023.


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