Honda celebrates the 50th race with the Red Bull Racing Team

Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix will see Red Bull Racing and Honda celebrate their 50th race together. Honda’s Technical Director, Toyoharu Tanabe, gives us his thoughts below along with Christian Horner, Team Principal at Red Bull Racing.

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Toyoharu Tanabe, Technical Director, Honda Racing F1

“It’s always good to be racing at Spa and this weekend also marks a special moment for us, as Sunday’s race will be Honda’s 50th in partnership with Red Bull Racing. In a short space of time, we have achieved some great results in this hybrid era, such as our first win in Austria in 2019 and first pole in Hungary that same year, as well as our first double podium with Red Bull in Bahrain 2020 and, most recently, the fact we have taken five consecutive wins so far this year.

Honda had been back in Formula 1 for four years before joining up with Red Bull and we had not even scored a podium finish, so we have come a long way to be now fighting for the championship together with Red Bull. This is down to a lot of hard work and excellent communication from everyone at Honda and Red Bull. On the eve of our 50th race, I want to thank Red Bull Racing for their open and fair approach and the trust they showed in us, sharing the same goal. In addition, we must not forget the contribution from the drivers in that time.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, 1st position, arrives in Parc Ferme

Another key factor was our excellent cooperation with Scuderia Toro Rosso back in 2018, which laid the groundwork for partnering both teams from the following year and we are proud of what we have achieved so far. There are only around a dozen races still remaining for Honda’s F1 project and we will all be pushing as hard as possible to finish this adventure on a high.”

Christian Horner, Red Bull Racing Honda Team Principal & CEO

“Our relationship with Honda has grown from strength to strength since we started working together at the beginning of the 2019 Formula One season. We are enormously proud of our joint success to date, delivering 11 wins and 32 podiums from 49 race starts. The spa will mark our 50th race together and this is a great moment to reflect on what we have achieved so far, build on that success and also thank everyone at Honda for their extraordinary effort and commitment, which has enabled us to be in the position to fight for a championship this year.”