Red bull recently announced a new partnership with Ford starting from the 2026 F1 season.
Former F1 driver has blamed Honda being ‘indecisive’ to be the reason for the Ford-Red bull F1 partnership. Christijan Albers blames Honda jumping in and out of F1 as a reason for Red bull parting ways with the Japanese manufacturer.
After many rumors, Red bull officially announced the new partnership with Ford Motorsports during the 2023 car launch. The new partnership will be starting 2026 onwards.
Although Honda runs the ‘Red bull powertrains’ department, their current power units are mostly based on Honda engines.
The Japanese manufacturer left the sport at the end of the 2021 season. However, continued supplying parts to the side before announcing the return to the sport during the Japanese Grand Prix last year.
Other than that, Honda is still a manufacturer and engine supplier in 2026.
“Red Bull was just sick of that” – Albers
Christijan Albers has expressed his view on the Honda-Red bull partnership.
“Red Bull stole people from Mercedes to make that Honda engine better,” Albers told De Telegraaf.
“Red Bull may be building an engine for the first time, but Honda are still involved. It’s putting a sticker on it.”
“I think they just got tired of those negotiations. Honda was so indecisive,” Albers said.
“Honda decided to pull the plug and yet now they’re back again. I think Red Bull was just sick of that.”
Red bull was also awarded a penalty for the 2022 season due to the budget cap breach in 2021. The penalty resulted in the reduction of the wind tunnel testing time for the Milton Keynes-based squad by 10%. However, Albers believes the penalty would not have a significant impact on the Austrian side:
“Red Bull is a rich team,” Albers added.
“They have enough budget.
“Yes there is a budget cap, but there are still quite a few exceptions. There is still quite a lot that can be done.
“Like Mercedes, they can reshuffle things a bit with the engine department now. They can mess around quite a bit.”
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