Japanese manufacturer Honda announced that it would cease to be involved in the Formula 1 world championship at the end of the 2021 F1 season. The news came as a shock as the ten existing F1 teams had recently agreed to commit to the sport until 2025 at least.
New sporting and technical regulations in 2021 and 2022 were expected to level the playing field among teams after an era of domination by Mercedes. The understanding had been that this stability would extend to F1's engine (or rather power unit) suppliers; Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault and Honda.
Honda's place in F1's history was cemented by huge success in the 1980s and 1990s with Williams and McLaren. Their return to F1 as engine suppliers in 2000 and then a factory team in 2006 was less than stellar despite some success. They suddenly quit F1 at the end of the 2008 season citing prudence in the face of the global economic crisis.
Their return to F1 in 2015 with McLaren was heralded but it turned out to be a failure as they didn't win a single race in their four-year partnership with the British team. After supplying Scuderia Toro Rosso (now Alpha Tauri) in 2018, Honda began to supply Red Bull Racing last season and the partnership netted three victories. Red Bull Racing and Alpha Tauri have won a race each in the 2020 F1 season and Red Bull Racing are currently second in the constructors' championship.
Honda currently supplies power units to the Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Alpha Tauri teams, both owned by Austrian energy drink supplier Red Bull. If Red Bull Racing and Alpha Tauri fail to find a power unit supplier for the 2022 season, Renault would be obligated to supply the two teams.
This would be on account of the current regulations where the power unit manufacturer with the fewest customer teams would have to fill the void left by an outgoing manufacturer. It would be an awkward situation to say the least, after Red Bull Racing had a public falling out with Renault.
The French manufacturer used to supply Red Bull Racing and its sister team with power units and the partnership led to four straight drivers' and constructors' championships from 2010 to 2013. However, Red Bull started to publicly castigate Renault for falling far behind Mercedes sinc the start of the 2014 season when the current turbo-hybrid power unit regulations came into effect. The 2018 season was the last time that Renault supplied power units to Red Bull Racing, when the team won four races.
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