Honda will return to Formula 1 in 2026 to equip the Aston Martin team with an engine and other components, the Japanese manufacturer announced on Wednesday.
“Honda has decided to participate in the Formula 1 World Cup as an engine supplier, starting in the 2026 season,” said Honda president Toshihiro Mibe, who assumed the return to racing as “a means of study” for development of your products. .
The Japanese manufacturer left Formula 1 in 2021 to focus on decarbonizing its cars, despite maintaining a technical maintenance agreement with Red Bull until 2025, to which it supplied engines until its last withdrawal.
Starting in 2026, with Aston Martin Aramco Honda on the starting grid, Formula 1 will make the use of 100% carbon neutral fuel mandatory, with a view to becoming fully carbon neutral by 2030.
This change “is in line with Honda’s direction on carbon neutrality and is of great importance for the development of future technologies to achieve it,” added the manufacturer, in a statement.
At a press conference, Toshihiro Mibe admitted that many young engineers “expressed their desire to accept new goals” and believes that the company can “be valued by participating in Formula 1.”
“Joining Honda is the last piece of the puzzle to establish Aston Martin as a top team, capable of winning world titles,” said the owner of the British team, Lawrence Stroll, present at the same conference.
The Canadian thanked Honda for trusting him, “for having seen the potential” in this alliance, recalling the Japanese’s journey in the ‘Big Circus’, with six drivers’ world titles (three for Ayrton Senna, one for Nélson Piquet, one for Alain Prost and another from Max Verstappen), as many manufacturers (Williams and McLaren) and 89 victories in grand prix, since 1964, shortly after putting their first cars on the market.
Honda left Formula 1 for the first time in 1968, returned in 1983, left again in 1992, after the crisis that affected Japan, returning as a team in 2000, in an experience that lasted eight years, until the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. prompted the company to withdraw again.
He would return in 2015 to supply engines to McLaren and, four years later, he joined Red Bull, with which he maintains the assistance agreement despite leaving as a technology provider in 2021, also valid with Alfa Tauri.
These two teams will be equipped by Ford, and, together with the announced return of Honda, a third manufacturer giant should be added, the Germans from Audi, which, also from 2026, should return to the premier category of motorsport through Sauber (currently Alfa Romeo), Ferrari, Mercedes and Renault (Alpine).
Source: TSF
