The successful partnership will be continued: Formula 1 world champion Max Verstappen and his Red Bull team can continue to rely on Honda’s technical support until the end of 2025. The racing team is also poaching at Mercedes. It will be exciting from 2026 with the new engine regulations.
The Red Bull Formula 1 team around world champion Max Verstappen poached the competition: The racing team wooed Mercedes around record world champion Lewis Hamilton from another high-ranking employee. As “motorsport.com” reports, Phil Prew comes from Mercedes, where he was most recently chief engineer in the engine department. The new technical director at Red Bull Powertrains, Ben Hodgkinson, also previously worked at Mercedes.
Red Bull has also prematurely extended its partnership with engine supplier Honda by two years to 2025. This was announced by Red Bull. The team thus closed the gap until the technology reform for the 2026 season, when the subsidiary Red Bull Powertrains should be solely responsible for the drive. “We are delighted to be able to continue working with Honda,” said Red Bull Motorsport Director Helmut Marko: “We have had a successful partnership so far, which has brought us to the 2021 drivers’ title and to the top of the 2022 drivers’ and teams’ championship. “
Honda has been supplying engines to Red Bull and sister team Alpha Tauri since 2018, but wanted to withdraw from Formula 1 in 2021. Red Bull formed an in-house engine manufacturer, Powertrains, to work with Honda over a transition period.
So far, the plan stipulated that Powertrains should act on its own after the 2023 season. This has now been discarded in view of the reform for the 2026 season. The engines will continue to be “completely manufactured in Japan”, as Marko already indicated in the “Autorevue” in the spring. Powertrains, on the other hand, should already develop a technological advantage for the new engine regulations from 2026. According to speculation, Porsche could then join Red Bull as a partner.
Red Bull uses the previously developed fundamentals to build its own engine unit, while still receiving technical help from the Japanese car giant. After Verstappen won the driver’s world championship last season, the racing team is well on the way to winning the constructors’ title in addition to the Dutchman’s second world championship triumph this year.
