After the 2025 F1 season, Honda Motor Company’s Honda Racing Corporation (HRC) will cease supplying and supporting engines for Red Bull’s two Formula 1 teams, Red Bull Racing and the Racing Bulls. In 2026, Honda will begin a works partnership with Aston Martin to supply power units that comply with the new FIA F1 Technical regulations that start that year.
Honda has a 61-year history with F1 racing, sometimes as a constructor (a team that supplies its own engines) and other times as a works supplier (providing engines for other teams). In late 1965, Honda fielded its first F1 team and surprised the racing world by winning the 1965 Mexico City Grand Prix.
Why Honda will no longer support Red Bull powertrains
Honda began supplying power units (the term for hybrid engines) to Scuderia Toro Rosso (the Red Bull junior team now called Racing Bulls) in 2018 and to Red Bull Racing in 2019. Max Verstappen won his four Drivers’ World Championships driving cars with Honda-sourced or supported power units.
Honda and Red Bull have had a good run. Following the 2021 season, Red Bull started supplying its own power units, referred to as RBPT. The Red Bull power trains are based on Honda’s developments, and Honda’s role has been to support reliability. That working arrangement ends in 2026 when the new power unit regulations and many other changes take effect.
Honda starts a new partnership with Aston Martin
Honda’s racing group, HRC, initially based in Sakura, Japan, is heavily involved in analyzing race car data to maximize performance. As the cars and their software systems have advanced, with 20,000 parameters tracked, teams adjust settings even during races.
Honda opened HRC US in 2023 and established HRC UK in Milton Keynes, England, in 2024. The Milton Keynes facility will be the base for the partnership with Aston Martin starting in 2026.
The 2026 F1 regulation changes to the cars, powertrains, and myriad other factors are complex. Several factors of significant importance to HRC are a new requirement for sustainable, 100% carbon-neutral fuel, a smaller maximum fuel load, and the elimination of the thermal energy regeneration unit. In addition, the power unit’s combustion engine and electric motor are also required to supply power approximately equally, a change from 80% combustion to 20% electric motor.
