The potential rise and fall of Red Bull-Honda

Red Bull-Honda Concept Livery by Sean Bull Design

Red Bull's announcement to partner with Honda has been a matter of speculation till they broke the silence back at French GP. Seeing how well relative to Williams, McLaren and Sauber Toro Rosso has gone through the 2018 season, it appears that the small steps of igniting a good partnership with Honda has already begun with the latter team. Red Bull have kept their keen eye on Toro Rosso and Honda but it turns out they have seen the potential with the Japanese company as a future competitive engine supplier.

It may appear like a big overwhelming task for the guys at Honda to fill up Red Bull's expectations, but given their sour relationship with McLaren for the previous seasons, they can now easily work and fully understand the regulations now more than ever with Toro Rosso. McLaren as a team were asking too much from Honda for more power but in returned they were spanked with retirements race after race, especially with the 2017 season.

Toro Rosso have given them enough breathing room and are now building upon their experiences from their recent comeback to the sport since 2015. And it appears they have gotten things right as Pierre Gasly has qualified into top-10s 6 times this season, while Brendon Hartley qualified 2 times respectively. And comparing this to McLaren Renault, they have barely made it out of Q1.

McLaren-Honda was unstoppable in 1980s and early 90s

And that's not to say Honda have been a rookie company either in F1, they have a rich history especially with McLaren back in the late 80s and early 90s. They were the sole reason why Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost won titles through out their partnership until Williams stepped in the game with their competitive cars.

But then slowly Honda lost its edge in F1 through out the V10 and V8 era until they bailed out entirely in 2009. Coming back after a long hiatus means they have missed quite a lot especially the massive engine regulation changes of 2014. The V6 turbo are far more complex than that of the early 80s counter-part, and also MGU-H being the key player of a strong power-train has left many manufacturers trying really hard to sustain a powerful yet reliable engine.

Its safe to say Honda has, even though gone through lot of grid penalties, have rarely gotten a DNF this season with Toro Rosso, while Red Bull with Renault engines have.

Daniel Ricciardo in RB14

But it also means it can go the other way around. Honda is still in rebuilding phase, so its still very risky for a team like Red Bull to go outright for championship fight. They have barely gotten so close to clinch any title since the hybrid era, so its very likely they will move any further with Honda at all.

Plus their drivers line-up is a also a 50-50 chances of failing or succeeding. Pierre has been promoted to Red Bull while Daniel after a disappointing season has moved to Renault. The Austrian team will now be challenged by two young drivers, in a way it could be as bad as how Max and Daniel have fought, especially this year's Azerbaijan GP, or it could be way worse. Max is already an aggressive young driver so Pierre will initially be overwhelmed until he also starts to fight back.

It won't be long before Christian and his team would be sweating for these two young lads bringing the cars back home safely, not behind a tow truck.

It's not just with the engine that Red Bull have been lacking behind either, the whole car would sometimes be a hit or miss in many races this whole season. Red Bull with Adrian Newey have a big job to do to make their cars more efficient now that the 2019 season has required more simple front wings and smaller longer barge-boards. This would be a race of who has the better car over the other and who has the better drivers line-up as well. Honda is now part of the battle of the Big Three now.

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Subhan Zafar

Formula 1 Analyst, Member News desk.

In his own words:

''Just a 22 Years old guy who loves F1, WEC, and a little bit of rallying and GT racing. McLaren needs to come back tho...''

Subhan can be reached personally on his email address

Gmail: subhaniron@gmail.com