Kurt Verlin
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Red Bull Ford Wouldn’t Have Happened if Honda Had Stayed in F1

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Christian Horner and Jim Farley
Christian Horner, Red Bull Racing team principal, and Jim Farley, Ford President and CEO
Photo: Ford

In 2026, Red Bull Powertrains will partner with Ford to create Formula 1 engines for the Red Bull Racing team. But team principal Christian Horner says that if they had known Honda would be coming back to the sport at the same time, they would have made a much different decision.


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“Would we have made the same decision knowing what Honda’s decision is today? Absolutely not,” he told Motorsport, adding that “we wouldn’t have made that jump [to building our own engines] had it not been for Honda’s withdrawal.”

According to Horner, Honda had originally planned to exit F1 entirely at the end of 2022. Instead, the Japanese manufacturer backed out at the end of 2021, but not before it had been convinced to continue supplying engines to Red Bull until the end of 2025.

In the meantime, Red Bull set up its own in-house powertrains division, anticipating independence. Despite the advantages this brings, Horner says the decision was expensive, and wouldn’t have been made if Honda had chosen to stay. Meanwhile, Honda executives were slowly backtracking on their own decision, eventually making a U-turn and announcing a 2026 partnership with Aston Martin.

Red Bull star driver Verstappen, who had “loved working with [Honda],” commented that the whole situation was “unfortunate” and “a bit of a shame.” But now that Red Bull has committed to building its own engines, “you can’t really work together anymore.”

Horner remained optimistic, though. “The jobs it’s created and provided and of course, the partnership we have with Ford is particularly exciting for the future and the commitment from Red Bull and the shareholders to the project.”

“Would we have made the same decision knowing what Honda’s decision is today? Absolutely not. But we made it and we’re committed to it and as the way we’ve gone has evolved, the more benefit that we see to the group long term.”

Red Bull Racing is currently dominating the 2023 F1 season with an unbranded Honda engine under the hood, which bodes well for them until 2025. After that, though, it will be up to Red Bull and Ford to deliver an engine that can compete against Honda.