Red Bull pivoted to Honda following a rejection by Mercedes, with insider Helmut Marko detailing the strategic switch.
Red Bull nearly used Mercedes engines in the late 2010s when Helmut Marko secured a tentative agreement with Mercedes F1’s non-executive chairman, Niki Lauda. The Austrian hoped to replace Renault in this way before Toto Wolff, the team director, canceled the discussions.
“When the new engine regulations came in 2014, our supplier unfortunately couldn’t produce a competitive engine,” Marko explains on the Inside Line F1 podcast. “And we tried… Still, there was quite a rivalry with Mercedes, and our boss [Dietrich Mateschitz] wasn’t a big fan either.”
“And I said: ‘Listen, with our engine, we can no longer motivate people, because everyone knows it’s an engine with which you can’t win.’ So, we reached an agreement with Mercedes, a friendly deal with Lauda, which wasn’t supported by Toto, and thus the deal didn’t materialize.”
Marko reveals that he decided at that time to trust Honda despite their poor results with McLaren up to that point, due to what he knew about the project: “And then we went to Honda. Honda, at that stage, was not competitive with McLaren, but I had insider information about what they were planning to do.”
“So we said ‘yes, we’re moving forward, we’re taking this risk,’ and I thought it wasn’t a risk, because I knew how much they had spent on the test benches. You know, AVL is in Graz, and I knew what they had spent. So they were very serious.”
“When we changed the engine, at that time, it had, as Alonso said, the power of an F2 engine, something like that. But we’ve always made bold decisions, so no risk, no fun.”
The former driver acknowledges that Red Bull faces an entirely new challenge in becoming an engine manufacturer with Ford’s support starting in 2026: “I think the next step is that we will have our own engine, which is a huge project, huge financially but also in terms of management.”
“So we’ll be a true manufacturer. That will start in 2026 and in the future, our goal will be to win races. Yes, win races with our own engine and always make it a benchmark. You know, like at the beginning, we do things differently, and that should also be the goal for the future.”
- You may also like>Aston Martin F1’s New Wind Tunnel Nears Completion
- Also make sure you follow us on social media>Facebook and>Twitter
Red Bull’s Shift to Honda After Mercedes Snub Red Bull’s Shift to Honda After Mercedes Snub
