How soon will Red Bull announce Honda power from 2019 onward?

[John]

Bottom post of the previous page:

So that would be a two year deal until maybe Aston Martin gets involved from 2021 onward? Where does Aston fit into this puzzle anyway? Who owns them?

[Vassago]

Aston Martin is owned by the two financial groups from Kuwait that orginally bought it from Ford in 2007 and an Italian prviate equity firm that purchased 37% shares in 2012.

[John]

So it's in no way affiliated with any of the manufacturers currently in F1? Bar lending it's name to Red Bull.

[kals]

So that would be a two year deal until maybe Aston Martin gets involved from 2021 onward? Where does Aston fit into this puzzle anyway? Who owns them?

Fair question and one that is also doing the rounds. That depends on how Red Bull and Honda decide to work together. The Honda deal may just be for 2019 and 2020, leaving the door open for Aston Martin to supply Red Bull come the new engine regulations in 2021.

And...

Honda purchases and takes over STR from 2021.

So it's in no way affiliated with any of the manufacturers currently in F1? Bar lending it's name to Red Bull.

Correct. It is a sponsorship deal. In a similar fashion to the previous arrangement with Infiniti (although that was through affiliation with Renault).

[John]

So that would be a two year deal until maybe Aston Martin gets involved from 2021 onward? Where does Aston fit into this puzzle anyway? Who owns them?

Fair question and one that is also doing the rounds. That depends on how Red Bull and Honda decide to work together. The Honda deal may just be for 2019 and 2020, leaving the door open for Aston Martin to supply Red Bull come the new engine regulations in 2021.

And...

Honda purchases and takes over STR from 2021.

So it's in no way affiliated with any of the manufacturers currently in F1? Bar lending it's name to Red Bull.

Correct. It is a sponsorship deal. In a similar fashion to the previous arrangement with Infiniti (although that was through affiliation with Renault).

Would be weird of Red Bull to sign up with Honda, re-design their car to accommodate the new power plant for 2019, only to do it all over again in 2021 to get to grips with an unknown Aston Martin PU. Then again I suppose that they'd get plenty of info on the PU from STR this year, to make it all a bit easier.

But even if they do swap engines for 2019, and the Honda proves to be fantastic, would Aston even be interested in entering F1?

[kals]

@John You’re forgetting that come 2021 there will be revised engine regulations, so it doesn’t matter what power unit teams have 2020 or 2021 as a redesign will be required.

[John]

@John You’re forgetting that come 2021 there will be revised engine regulations, so it doesn’t matter what power unit teams have 2020 or 2021 as a redesign will be required.

Oh dear god, I feel a bit silly now.

[Ian-S]

Who owns them? (Aston Martin).

Dave Richards, or rather he did, I think it's now partly owned by him, Ford and InvestIndustrial (an Italian private equity firm), it could be Ford sold their stake to the Italians, can't remember.

The fact Prodrive run AM's in Sports Cars is no coincidence, they run them because the same guy owns both.

[Everso Biggyballies]

@Ian-S I think DR is just the CEO, with the bulk of the shares owned by the Middle East as @Vassago mentioned earlier. The Italians threw their euros into the pot as well.

Aston Martin is owned by the two financial groups from Kuwait that orginally bought it from Ford in 2007 and an Italian prviate equity firm that purchased 37% shares in 2012.

[Ian-S]

Urgh I missed that, thanks.

I think technically it was a "buyout led by DR", so he was the face, the Q8 lot the money, I don't even think he's CEO anymore, didn't they bring some Nissan head honcho in last year? I suspect like Bernie did with F1, DR owns the important shares though.

[MonteCristo]

And...

Honda purchases and takes over STR from 2021.

Interesting idea. Dietrich Mateschitz has been said to want to sell the team in the past.

[John]

And...

Honda purchases and takes over STR from 2021.

Interesting idea. Dietrich Mateschitz has been said to want to sell the team in the past.

Someone tell him to flog it back to Giancarlo Minardi.

[kals]

So another Renault issue in the back of a Red Bull this weekend, but yet (unless I’m mistaken) no Renault issues so far this season in the back of a Renault or McLaren... hmmm...

[Everso Biggyballies]

As I said in the GP thread I wonder if it is to do with Red Bull's refusal to use the Renault recommended fuel and lubricants.

Red Bull are the only team to not use the same oil and fuel as their engine manufacturer.
Ferrari insist Haas and Sauber use Shell, as do Mercedes insist Williams and FI use Petronas. (Hence why Petrobras disappeared from Williams.)
Renault use BP Castrol (as do McLaren FWIW) but Red Bull insist on using Exonn Mobil.

The post I wrote earlier has an interview with Toto Wolff regarding this exact issue. He in effect says Red Bull have rocks in their head to not use the recommended lubricants and fuel.

viewtopic.php?p=332835#p332835

[kals]

Honda and Red Bull have held their first formal meeting over a possible Formula 1 engine supply.

Red Bull, which currently uses Renault engines, has been using Toro Rosso to monitor Honda's operation and progress after the junior team switched from a Renault supply for the 2018 F1 season.

Dr Helmut Marko, Red Bull's motorsport advisor, met with Honda's motorsport boss Masashi Yamamoto in the build-up to this weekend's Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

The Baku meeting is the first formal conversation between Honda and Red Bull about a potential supply and the conditions each party would require to make a deal happen.

Red Bull and Honda appear to be happy to work to the May 15 deadline for confirming an engine supply outlined in the FIA's F1 sporting regulations.

There is flexibility in this date, provided all the engine manufacturers and the FIA agree, but Renault has indicated it will stick to the deadline if it is to continue supplying Red Bull beyond its current agreement, which ends this year.

Renault is understood to be planning a significant performance step for June's Canadian GP, which could coincide with the next major upgrade from Honda.

This would present a key comparison between the two manufacturers' performance and development levels, if Red Bull has not firmed up an engine supply deal by then.

The Red Bull-Renault alliance won four world titles from 2010-13, but has endured a fractious relationship since F1 introduced V6 turbo-hybrids.

Red Bull has won just nine races since the start of 2014 as Mercedes and Ferrari have outgunned Renault in F1's new engine era.

Daniel Ricciardo's victory in China this year meant Red Bull won a race before Mercedes for the first time since 2013, but the start of his season has also featured a couple of high-profile failures.

This has heightened speculation Red Bull is ready to gamble on Honda, which would be its first de facto works engine supplier since Renault revived its factory team programme and Red Bull rebadged its customer Renaults as Tag Heuers.

Honda is still seeking to improve its energy recovery systems and its internal combustion engine technology and is yet to prove it is ready to produce a race-winning engine, but there is evidence of more progress in 2018.

The best McLaren-Honda result across three years was fifth place, which Toro Rosso beat on only its second start with Honda this season when Pierre Gasly finished fourth in Bahrain.

Doubt over Honda's short-term capabilities is what triggered the dissolution of the McLaren-Honda union in the first place.

McLaren finally lost patience during the third season of poor results with Honda, which has struggled to make up ground after returning to F1 in the second season of the current engine regulations.

It therefore triggered a complicated swap deal to ditch Honda for Renault, with Toro Rosso going the other way.

[kals]

Red Bull and Honda have scheduled further talks for the Spanish Grand Prix, amid growing indications they could join up in Formula 1 in 2019.

As Autosport revealed earlier this week, the Milton Keynes-based team and the Japanese manufacturer held their first formal discussions about a potential future engine partnership in Baku last weekend.

There, Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko sat down with Honda motorsport boss Masashi Yamamoto to map out initial ideas about what could be possible from next year.

It has since emerged that the talks were encouraging enough for a second round of negotiations to be firmed up for the next race at Barcelona, which Yamamoto will attend.

Sources have suggested both sides are pushing hard for a Red Bull-Honda deal to be sorted - with the Canadian Grand Prix in June potentially key to a final decision as both Honda and Red Bull's current supplier Renault are set to introduce engine upgrades for that race.

Red Bull is keeping tight-lipped on the state of negotiations, but has suggested it is waiting for Honda's latest upgrade so it can judge its full potential.

"We are very satisfied with the way the partnership with Toro Rosso is going," Marko told Autosport.

"The reliability has already improved considerably. And as far as performance goes, we'll wait for the next update."

Red Bull's desire to wait until Canada before making a decision would put it beyond the preferred May 15 date that Renault has favoured, so it is unclear how the French manufacturer would respond if there was no commitment by that date.

Although it is understood that any Red Bull-Honda alliance will not result in the kind of financial injection to the team that McLaren enjoyed, there is scope for a stronger alliance than just being engine partners.

Honda is eager to get one of its junior drivers in to an F1 seat, which would most likely be with Toro Rosso.

The obvious candidate for this is Nirei Fukuzumi, who is running a joint campaign in Formula 2 and Super Formula this year to help boost his F1 superlicence points potential.

A Fukuzumi promotion to Toro Rosso would mean that one of the team's current drivers Pierre Gasly or Brendon Hartley would have to move aside.