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Originally posted by sjtill:
I just read that Bernie Ecclestone is 94, has a 4-year old son, and thinks “Donald Trump is the best thing that could happen to the world.”

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Why the Red Bull-Honda bond was beyond saving after F1 2025
By Ronald Vording

Feb 11, 2025 05:51 PM

From an inauspicious start in a Mercedes-dominated era, Red Bull's partnership with Honda propelled both teams back to the front, with Max Verstappen following in Sebastian Vettel's footsteps as a four-time world champion, amassing 63 wins by the end of 2024.

But it's a success story that is coming to an end, with Red Bull taking matters into its own hands with Red Bull Powertrains-Ford, while Honda joins forces with Aston Martin for 2026's new power unit regulations.

October 2020: Honda pulls out

The beginning of the end of the Red Bull-Honda partnership was 2 October 2020, the day Honda officially announced it would leave Formula 1 after the 2021 season. The company stated it was fully committed to electrification and feared the economic consequences of the global COVID-19 crisis. "Honda needs to funnel its corporate resources in research and development of future power unit and energy technologies," a statement at the time read. An expensive F1 programme no longer fitted into that picture.

It was a shock to many in the F1 paddock, including Red Bull itself, which had to come up with a plan amid limited options. "I am a great believer in fate. It was during COVID that Honda decided to withdraw, so that left us with a choice", team principal Horner said. "We wouldn't get an engine from Mercedes and at Ferrari, we weren't sure how many cylinders we would get! Renault, we had been there and done that, to go back again didn't feel right. It felt like it almost forced our hand to say 'okay, let's make a decision'."

One left-field option was to acquire Honda's IP and build the current power unit until the end of the current rules cycle, but that proved too complicated to pull off for both sides. "Having explored that it became more and more complex, because that process is not just about building engines, it is way more than that with the supply chain and so on," Horner said.

A more realistic path was a paid deal between Honda and Red Bull until the end of 2025. Honda would provide technical support, and all engines for both Red Bull Racing and Racing Bulls would still come from Japan. "We announced stopping our Formula 1 activities, but after discussions with Red Bull, they wanted us to continue the activities. That’s why we became a kind of technical support since then. In fact, we still operate everything on the power unit side", Honda Racing Corporation chief Watanabe told Motorsport.com.

Horner added: "We are a customer to Honda. We pay for engines through a separate entity of Red Bull powertrains. It has been a great relationship, and they continue to provide an excellent service that we pay for, to provide engines for the four cars."

November 2022: Honda decides on F1 U-turn, but Red Bull has already moved on

Honda started entertaining second thoughts about its decision when the 2026 regulations started moving in the direction the Japanese giant was pursuing, featuring sustainable fuels and a larger percentage of hybrid power. "From Honda's point of view, the new F1 regulations for 2026 with the combustion engine being fifty percent and the electrical parts being fifty percent are very attractive to both Honda and Honda Racing", Watanabe explained. "The direction with the carbon-neutral fuel is very good for us as well, so that is basically why we decided to officially return to Formula 1."

Honda's first talks about 2026 were still with Red Bull, with advisor Helmut Marko visiting the manufacturer in Japan. "But when we withdrew from Formula 1, Red Bull decided to establish its own power unit company. That is why there was basically no room to work together", Watanabe recalls from those meetings.

By the time Honda changed its mind, Red Bull had already invested millions into its own powertrains project, setting up a dedicated unit at its Milton Keynes campus. There was no turning back, as Verstappen points out: "A few years ago, they said 'we're going to stop', so then Red Bull set up its own engine division. Unfortunately, once you're already in the process of building a whole engine yourself, you can't really work together anymore."

An interesting detail, however, is that Honda and Red Bull did discuss one other option for 2026. "During our regular conversations we discussed the option of Red Bull doing the internal combustion engine themselves and us doing the electrical parts", Watanabe revealed. "But that wouldn't have been easy at all if they only made the ICE and we did the electrical parts, so in the end we found out that it was impossible to collaborate under these conditions."

It would have been a gamble to combine an internal combustion engine produced in the UK with electrical parts from Japan, including the complexity of working on two different sides of the world. Another risk was that neither side would have had full control over the end product. For example, if the combustion engine fell short, that would indirectly reflect on Honda, while the Japanese engineers had no control over it.

May 2023: Honda lands on Aston Martin deal as Red Bull gets help from Ford

The result is that both brands will go their separate ways in 2026. Honda eventually did a deal to work with Lawrence Stroll's hyper ambitious Aston Martin squad, although Watanabe reveals that multiple teams showed interest.

"In the first part of the process there were only conversations between Honda and Red Bull," he recalled. "The discussions with other teams started after we officially registered ourselves with the FIA as a power unit supplier for 2026. That was in November 2022. Then some other teams contacted us, as they were interested in working with Honda. We talked to those parties and made a decision."

Asked how many teams approached Honda, Watanabe responded: "I cannot give you the exact number, but several teams. With some of those we've only had contact once and some others we've met several times."

Meanwhile, Red Bull Powertrains signed a technical partnership deal with Ford, with the OEM's contribution described as its expertise on "battery cell and electric motor technology as well as power unit control software and analytics", with the engines still being built and developed in Milton Keynes.

It is an immense task, although Horner thinks Red Bull's first-ever in-house power unit programme offers opportunities as well. "From a future protection point of view, we didn't want to be in a position where we were with Honda, where suddenly a change in management or head office making a decision that F1 doesn't suit them anymore – and you haven't got an engine," he said.

"With this route we have way more control of our own destiny. The investment that we've made is for the long term, it's not a short-term commitment. I think other than Ferrari, we're the only team that has everything fully integrated for 2026 with the same ownership on one site. And for us that's invaluable."

Horner added: "I've got no illusions that there won't be challenges in 2026. I mean, to hit the ground running with a competitive power unit against Mercedes, Ferrari and Honda – they're all massive manufacturers with decades of experience. We've got three years of experience, but we've got a huge amount of passion. We've got some great people, we've got the facilities, we've got great partners, and we've got the attitude that served us so well in the 122 race wins that we've achieved so far.

"It would be so rewarding when we add to that number with an engine that's been designed, built and manufactured here in Milton Keynes."

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Why Ford settled on Red Bull F1 deal – ‘We even looked at buying our own team’
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Red Bull Ford Powertrains
The story of Ford's return to Formula 1, from Red Bull's point of view, is well known by now.

The Milton Keynes-based team held lengthy talks with Porsche to develop a works engine for the all-new 2026 power unit regulations, but those ultimately collapsed. The German sports car brand was keen on becoming an equal partner, including shares, but Red Bull feared losing control. And given the involvement of the Volkswagen Group - and its myriad layers of governance - Red Bull was also wary of losing its agile decision making.

Ford observed the breakdown of Red Bull's negotiations with Porsche with keen interest and immediately saw an opportunity. "It became very clear that, at least from what we saw from the outside, that it was not going to work for Red Bull with Porsche", Ford Motorsports director Mark Rushbrook told Motorsport.com. "I literally got Christian Horner's email address, sent him an email and said ‘Hi, do you want to talk?’"

It led to the first conversations, about which Horner shared an amusing anecdote: "We went to a meeting at Dearborn on the way to Brazil, and met with yourself, Bill Ford and Jim [Farley]. I thought we were in good shape when Jim walked into the meeting with a Sergio Perez cap! I thought 'Okay, we are looking pretty good here!' You could just feel that there was a real enthusiasm from the very top of the company, from Bill Ford, who was so enthusiastic about coming back to Formula 1, and Jim, who is a racer himself."

Things started moving quickly, although the question remains why Ford specifically chose Red Bull for its new chapter in Formula 1. Ford has a rich history in the series, including the once-omnipresent Cosworth DFV engines, although it had been absent since late 2004 when it sold the Jaguar team to none other than Red Bull.

The growing popularity of the sport and the 2026 regulations both played their part swaying opinions at the Michigan headquarters. "If you would have asked me five years ago, and actually people did ask me, ‘Is Ford going to get back into Formula 1?’ then my answer was no. At the time we didn’t think that F1 was the right place for us, but certainly things have changed afterwards", Rushbrook said.

"If you see how the regulations are written down for 2026 with the increase of the electrification, with the fuel changes and with the commitment to be net-zero by 2030, that aligns with a lot of our values and what is important for us. The growth of the sport plays a role as well. We go racing for innovation and for tech transfer, so transferring technology from the racetrack to the road and, if possible, the other way around as well. We also want to go racing for the ability to tell the story of our company, our people and our products. Three years ago, it became clear that things were changing and that we needed to take a serious look at Formula 1 again. And here we are."

Ford considered buying its own team

But between the ambition of returning to F1 and actually signing a deal, there is still the step of weighing up all the options. Rushbrook revealed that Ford also looked at other options once it was clear that the company wanted to return to F1, including the possibility of buying an existing team.

"Before we had this deal with Red Bull, there were a lot of discussions going on," he explained. "Some Formula 1 teams approached us, and we approached some teams as well. We needed to understand the landscape and the different ways to get into the sport.

"We even looked at ‘Okay, should we buy a team ourselves?’ I think we demonstrated by what this team has become, what used to be Jackie Stewart Racing and Jaguar, that this is not our core competency, right? Yes, we are in motorsports, but nowhere do we own or run a team. We always go with partners, whether it's Dick Johnson racing in Australia, Penske in NASCAR, Bob Tasca in NHRA or M-Sport in rally.

"You can go and do your own power unit entirely by yourself or you could come in as just a customer power unit, but then Ford doesn’t have anything invested into a team itself. As soon as we saw this as an opportunity, it became clear very quickly that it was the right way to go. This opportunity allows us to partner with what we believe is the best team in the series. We are complementary, and for us that is the right way to do it."

What is Ford actually contributing?

The big question in those early conversations was what Ford could actually bring to the Red Bull programme other than a badge and its chequebook, and how the power unit programme would be run between the two partners, with work already well under way at the team's in-house Red Bull Powertrains division.

My first question to Christian was ‘What are you looking for in a partner?’ and I was prepared to say what we were looking for in a partner. In the first 20 minutes of that discussion there was a very broad alignment," Rushbrook recalled. "In that first meeting we also outlined the areas where Red Bull Racing needed help with the power unit and with the racing team, and the areas where we wanted to contribute and learn. That process continues today, although the list is longer today than during those initial discussions."

After the first meeting, the idea was that Ford would mainly help with the electrical parts of the 2026 engine, although Rushbrook emphasizes that more is happening behind the scenes. "Additive manufacturing is a good example of that. We have good resources and materials for it. That wasn't on the initial list, but it is happening now. The same goes for contributing to the internal combustion engine and the turbo. Those things weren’t on the initial list either, but there is a lot of knowledge that we have with modelling and testing that can help Red Bull."

According to Rushbrook, it underlines that Ford isn't just in it for the marketing exposure but also for the aforementioned tech transfer to its road cars. "Our main focus is on the electrification, the battery cell chemistry, the battery pack, the motor, the inverter, but also in the controls and the software. That is a big opportunity for us."

It's a way of working that is completely different compared to what Red Bull initially discussed with Porsche, Horner pointed out. "From the outset Mark and Jim Farley said 'You guys do Formula 1 every day. That's your bread and butter. We're not going to impose our methodology on you. You tell us, how can we help? Where can we assist?' It was very much an open book. It feels like a partnership that you're not imposing on the engineers, which sometimes happens in these relationships, and what we were fearful of in the other option we were looking at."

The spirit of Mateschitz: ‘No risk, no fun’

How competitive the end product of that collaboration will be in 2026 is still unknown, although Horner admitted that he was under no illusion that the first year will be plain sailing. But he also sees an advantage for Ford, as the brand might not get publicly judged too harshly because in the current set-up it doesn't have full responsibility over the engine. "It's a bit like being grandparents", Horner joked. "You get all the benefits of the kid and all the upsides, but then you give it back to the parents and you don't have the sleepless nights and you don’t have to change the nappies, so there is a kind of analogy there.

"For us it's just exciting to have the Blue Oval back in Formula 1. Of course, there's risk associated with what we are doing. Taking on and doing what we are doing is insane in terms of the investment and producing our own engine, but as Dietrich Mateschitz always told us: 'No risk, no fun'. That applies to this project, and it's something we couldn't have done without a like-minded partner."

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Abbie Eaton on women in F1

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Originally posted by KSGM:

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Abbie Eaton on women in F1

On the cornering G-forces: is some of it helped by the tight cockpit and neck collar brace thing I have seen drivers wear? I recall having seen a collar brace that the helmet is tethered to at multiple points. Is that used in F1?