Why Honda and Red Bull Racing will be winners
The decision has been made, it's going to be a Honda power unit in the Aston Martin Red Bull Racing F1 cars as of next season. Yes, that sounds weird indeed, Aston Martin and Honda in one sentence. But it's going to happen. After many years of Renault power, the team has decided to switch to Honda. In the last year the engine was labelled as a Tag Heuer engine, but after a few months of trying to not refer to Renault, everybody gave up to mention Tag Heuer.
How to become the championship winner
So why did Red Bull Racing decide to go for Honda? The last years with McLaren were not a best practise to see how the Honda power unit performs. Who doesn't remember the radio messages of Alonso, comparing it with a GP2 enige. Your worst nightmare as a manufacturer of world class. But after McLaren took the bullet, and went for Renault, the Toro Rosso team were surprised by their new toy, the Honda engine. No more big blow ups, or headlines about poor performance. A smart move of Red Bull management to see how the engine would perform at the junior team. And now after a couple of races, it was clear. If there was any chance in the next years to get equal or ahead of Mercedes and Ferrari, the had to go for a 100% dedicated engine manufacturer. Renault would always be a 2nd place supplier to the team, next to their own Renault Sport F1 team.
Why not Renault?
All power unit suppliers, need to provide the same engine to all the teams by regulation. So the engine for the Renault Sport F1 team is the same as the one for McLaren. But.... the design of the engine is highly influenced by the design of the car of the manufacturer. So the other teams need to adjust to that. And it's a paddock secret that it's not unlikely that the power unit software is a bit different as the one used by the manfucturers team. Obviously Renault would develop the engine to best fit their own car, and not the one of RBR. With Honda, RBR are able to influence the design and specs to their best, so the design and engine are perfectly matched. From my point of view, RBR made the right decision to go for Honda. It's their chance to get ahead instead of keeping up with the rest.
More info: Red Bull Racing
How to become the championship winner
So why did Red Bull Racing decide to go for Honda? The last years with McLaren were not a best practise to see how the Honda power unit performs. Who doesn't remember the radio messages of Alonso, comparing it with a GP2 enige. Your worst nightmare as a manufacturer of world class. But after McLaren took the bullet, and went for Renault, the Toro Rosso team were surprised by their new toy, the Honda engine. No more big blow ups, or headlines about poor performance. A smart move of Red Bull management to see how the engine would perform at the junior team. And now after a couple of races, it was clear. If there was any chance in the next years to get equal or ahead of Mercedes and Ferrari, the had to go for a 100% dedicated engine manufacturer. Renault would always be a 2nd place supplier to the team, next to their own Renault Sport F1 team.
Why not Renault?
All power unit suppliers, need to provide the same engine to all the teams by regulation. So the engine for the Renault Sport F1 team is the same as the one for McLaren. But.... the design of the engine is highly influenced by the design of the car of the manufacturer. So the other teams need to adjust to that. And it's a paddock secret that it's not unlikely that the power unit software is a bit different as the one used by the manfucturers team. Obviously Renault would develop the engine to best fit their own car, and not the one of RBR. With Honda, RBR are able to influence the design and specs to their best, so the design and engine are perfectly matched. From my point of view, RBR made the right decision to go for Honda. It's their chance to get ahead instead of keeping up with the rest.
More info: Red Bull Racing