World News – GB – Honda announces it will quit F1 at the end of the 2021 season

Honda – engine supplier to Red Bull Racing and Alpha Tauri – shocks the sport by announcing its intention to leave F1 at the end of the 2021 season

Honda has announced it will quit Formula 1 at the end of the 2021 season, citing a « period of great transformation over a hundred years » affecting the auto industry

The Japanese firm, which has a rich history of success over several eras in F1, returned to the first four-wheel series in 2015 as a driving partner of the McLaren team, but only since its shift to supplying Red Bull Racing and its sister AlphaTauri have achieved notable success with its V6 Hybrid power pack

However, despite some victories in the 2019 and 2020 F1 seasons, Honda shocked the sport by confirming its exit in just over a year, leaving only Mercedes, Renault and Ferrari as engine suppliers to leave. from F1 2022

In a lengthy statement from Takahiro Hachigo, the President, Representative Director and CEO of Honda Motor Co, Ltd, he expressed pride in Honda’s resumption of performance during a difficult time, but maintained the passage of the company towards greener technologies and carbon neutrality has put its F1 program in contradiction with its future objectives (Extract below – Read the full statement HERE)

“In F1, Honda has achieved a certain level of success in achieving our goal of winning and now we will be channeling our strengths into achieving innovations in the new field of generating sets and carbon-free energy and achieving carbon neutrality It will be as tough and difficult a challenge as competing in F1, and it will be a huge challenge Honda has to tackle with the company Today’s announcement is also meant to express Honda’s determination to take on a new achievement challenge. of carbon neutrality In collaboration with Honda stakeholders, we will continue our efforts and strive to achieve carbon neutrality

« Since our creation, Honda has been evolving its technologies, developing its engineers and nurturing its strong passion for victory through the challenges we have taken up in motorsport Racing is in Honda’s DNA, and as a result, Honda will continue to be passionate about taking on challenges and striving to become No. 1 in all categories of racing in which Honda participates

« We still have seven races this season, and we are launching a new power unit with improved performance for next season. In order to meet the expectations of our fans on Honda, we will work with Red Bull Racing and Scuderia AlphaTauri to continue to compete with all our efforts and strive for more wins until the end »Red Bull reacted with ‘disappointment’ to the news, which leaves AlphaTauri and AlphaTauri without an engine contract for the 2022 F1 season (MORE HERE)

A company with a rich tradition in F1 both as a manufacturer and as an engine supplier, Honda returned to sport in 2015 as the first new manufacturer to develop its own V6 hybrid powertrain beyond the three existing suppliers who raced during the V8 Era Teaming up with McLaren with great fanfare in a deal that also saw him bring back two-time world champion Fernando Alonso to the squad, the project turned out to be a disaster from the start , the engine proving to be both terribly unreliable and slowWhile there was general frustration over the V6 hybrid formula as a whole too complicated to develop from scratch, it nonetheless led to an increasingly choppy McLaren – in the midst of its worst seasons in F1 – criticizing Honda regularly in publicDespite improvements during the later stages of their partnership, the two sides eventually decided to go their separate ways at the end of the 2017 season, leading to a new deal with Red Bull to initially supply the sister outfit formerly named Scuderia Toro Rosso.From 2019 Red Bull and Honda joined forces and achieved much more success with Verstapp by bringing Honda its first F1 victory in Austria – as an engine supplier or manufacturer – since 2006 Four more wins, including one for AlphaTauri, have since followed, Prior to its return in 2015, Honda experienced sporadic spells in F1 as an engine manufacturer and supplier, most famous in the late 1980s and early 1990s with McLaren. His most recent foray into F1 ended in 2008 when he left the sport, only for entry to be assumed by the BrawnGP team who would continue to dominate the 2009 F1 season.

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Formula 1, Red Bull Racing, Honda Motor Company, Christian Horner, Max Verstappen, Scuderia Toro Rosso, 2021