(Motorsports news)The Japanese carmaker has been Red Bull’s powertrain partner for the previous six seasons, helping the team win three driver’s titles thanks to Max Verstappen. However, the company has stepped up its efforts for 2026 now that Aston Martin has joined it as a works team.
Honda, on the other hand, has chosen to focus its main efforts on securing the electrical infrastructure, despite its experience in creating V6 internal combustion engines for the existing regulations.
This shifts to a nearly 50/50 ratio between ICE and electrical power, supported by a 350kW MGU-K. The revised rules do not include the turbo-mounted MGU-H.
In contrast, Red Bull is working with Ford on its own internal powertrain project as it prepares to separate from Honda at the end of 2025. Red Bull began by creating an entirely new ICE from the ground up.
“Thus far, everything is proceeding as expected. Everything is in line with our own expectations, of course, but we can’t go into too much detail,” HRC President Koji Watanabe said in a Motorsport.com exclusive interview.
Our attention is now mostly on the electric engine components and the batteries because we were first concentrating on the electrical side of the engine.
“This work perfectly aligns with our own goals. Naturally, we are also working on the internal combustion engine in parallel, albeit it isn’t quite a V6 yet. It has just one cylinder presently.
“Thus far, everything is proceeding as expected. We can’t go into too much information, of course, but everything meets our own standards.”
Honda officially exited Formula One at the end of 2021 as a full-factory power unit supplier, but thanks to a regulation freeze, it is still building its current power unit and maintaining its relationship with Red Bull through its racing business, HRC.
According to Watanabe, after the post-2021 partial withdrawal, a large number of Honda employees moved on to other projects, which made a number of new hires necessary to support the company’s new 2026 project.
In addition, HRC has established a new company in the UK, the address of which will be decided upon later, with the aim of maintaining and preparing Aston Martin’s new 2026-spec powertrains.
HRC USA (formerly Honda Performance Developments), a US-based company that oversees Acura’s IMSA endeavors and the brand’s IndyCar engine project, will also get involved.
“The majority of the engineers quit the F1 section when we declared that we would be discontinuing our F1 operations. According to Watanabe, “all significant engineers have moved on to other projects, including Honda Mobility.”
We had to re-fill all of these roles as a result, albeit not with exactly the same individuals. While it was a little more difficult for other roles and required some time, some persons remained the same.”
“The [HRC UK] firm has been registered, but the precise location has not yet been determined. Our primary reason for registering was to recruit employees in the United Kingdom.
“Those tasks require time because occasionally you have to cope with a gardening vacation period. Because of this, we have already registered and want to begin employing employees in England this summer.”
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