Honda Hopes To Return To F1 In The Future

At the end of 2021, Honda left Formula 1 after being an engine supplier for seven years. It was a great year for Honda to go out as they had the engine in Max Verstappen’s car, who won the world championship in the final race of the season. Many people tipped Lewis Hamilton to win the title, but Verstappen held off the favourite to earn his first championship.

It’s surprising Honda is leaving, but the company wants to return to Formula 1 in the future. The sport is very lucrative, especially if you can supply the engine for a winning driver. Yet, the time was not right for the company.

Honda Hopefully Returns

Honda Motorsport’s boss Masashi Yamamoto believes the company will supply engines for F1 in the future. This past season, the company worked with McLaren, AlphaTauri, and Red Bull. Honda is leaving F1 to focus on the company’s larger goal.

Honda is looking to help the world achieve carbon neutrality in automobiles. The time and money dedicated to F1 were not realistic for this to occur. Red Bull and AlphaTauri will continue to use some Honda technology in 2022, but the company has left the sport.

After 2022, the two teams will likely stay away from Honda because of the lack of support from the company. Once Honda moves closer to carbon neutrality, they will have the goal of getting back into the sport. However, this is not a quick task for the company.

Yamamoto said, “Personally, I hope and expect Honda will come back to Formula 1. It depends on young people in Honda being passionate about motorsport and if they can convince senior management to come back. But history repeats, so I hope it can happen. Even while having to deal with logistical difficulties, partly down to the Covid-19 pandemic, in this our last season, we have been fighting with very strong rivals and we came out on top of the Formula 1 world.”

Honda has been one of the best manufacturers in the sport since the eighties. The company won six Constructors and five Drivers Championships with Williams and McLaren in the eighties and nineties.

They returned to the sport with McLaren in 2015, and there were definitely growing pains. Expanding to Red Bull really helped put the engine on the map, but it was a slow winning process.

The Growth of Honda

Honda is leaving Formula 1 when they are on top of the world. Since returning in 2015, it took a lot of work to regain a winning culture. Honda did not put a driver on the podium until the fifth year when Verstappen came in third place. Over the past three years, Honda has been dominant behind Verstappen and company.

The manufacturer had 17 wins over the past three years, 16 of which came with Red Bull. The other was with AlpaTauri. Honda started as one of the most unreliable engines in the sport, and they ended this stint by challenging Mercedes for the World Championship.

Mercedes still was slightly higher, but the company was making a lot of progress towards becoming the best behind Verstappen’s strong driving. Yamamoto raved about the engine’s growth over the past seven years.

He credited every member of the company for the World Championship win, showing how much it meant to Honda.

“This is due to all the hard work from all our engineers and mechanics, not just those at the racetrack. They never gave up, even in the most difficult times, and made numerous technological breakthroughs along the way. We were able to prove the validity and effectiveness of our technology and the abilities of our workforce. Of course, we could not have achieved these results without the major role played by our great partners, Red Bull Racing, with whom we won the title and also Scuderia AlphaTauri, who welcomed us with an open mind, allowing us to move forward together after a difficult three years.”