On the third day of blogmas, Bron gave to me; a blog post on Red Bull and Honda.
Did you sing that? You better had.
Continuing on the subject of era's in motorsport, here is a new one that's about to begin. Red Bull and Honda. That's one partnership I'd never thought I'd see. However, here we are.
What should we make of this partnership? Should we be optimistic or concerned? Read ahead for my thoughts.
Red Bull Racing. Founded in 2005 by, well, Red Bull; they took part in their first Formula One race at that year's Australian Grand Prix with both cars driven by Scotsman; David Coulthard and Austrian; Christian Klein. Fast forward 18 years later and RBR have since won 4 championships, (most notably during the years the team had Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber driving for them), and numerous second and third places. They are a "party" team and one that is hard to dislike.
And then there's Honda. They have been apart of Formula One since 1964, on and off. Most recently returning in 2015 with McLaren, a partnership that was described as a "disaster."
Before their return to Formula One in 2015, Honda are most recognised for the work with McLaren between 1988 and 1992. The Japanese engine supplier gave the British team a total of 44 wins from 80 starts making their re-entry into the sport in 2015 an exciting and optimistic one. However, as mentioned before, this was not the case. Not even close.
Over the course of the 2015 season, the Honda powered engine proved to be very unreliable and under powered, providing the McLaren team with numerous DNF's and engine failures throughout the season. Thanks to this, McLaren now hold the record of the highest grid penalty given to a team. A whopping 105 grid positions at that years Belgian Grand Prix. Legend has it, both drivers started from Cologne in Germany.
2016 was better but not great and 2017 was on par with 2016. Things looked bad for Honda. So bad, in fact, McLaren claimed they were "lost." It was after this that it became apparent McLaren and Honda would not revive their "glory days" from the 80's and both went their separate ways.
For 2018, Honda stayed in Formula One. This season, however, they partnered with Red Bull's junior team; Toro Rosso. I must admit, I wasn't expecting much but alas, Honda proved me wrong. It was almost like they were starting to come back to life. The engine seemed to have the reliability that it had lacked in previous years and with a 4th place finished for Toro Rosso driver; Pierre Gasly, in that same year, things were obviously looking up for the engine supplier.
And, with that, after numerous power failures with Renault, the parent team; Red Bull, decided to take the leap and on 19th June 2018, it was announced that the two would partner for the 2019 and 2020 seasons. Making many people, such as myself, think "whatttttt?!?"
However, I understand Red Bull's logic. Honda are obviously not as bad as they seemed with McLaren. And to see McLaren still having problems suggests that it was their car more than anything.
The whole Red Bull team seem to be extremely optimistic by this move, especially as they've had the opportunity to be involved with the engine processes after the supplier joined forces with Toro Rosso earlier this year. "Good progress is being made and that's encouraging for us." That's what Red Bull Team Principle; Christian Horner stated. Honda need that encouragement. I honestly believe working with a team like Red Bull will be the break Honda needs. If Red Bull didn't think enough progress had been made during the 2018 season, then they wouldn't have taken this chance.
It's a chance worth taking. Amazing things may be about to happen.
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