Porsche has called time on its long-mooted partnership with the Milton Keynes-based team. Expect fallout...
So it turns out the Red Bull and Porsche thing won’t happen. Wow, didn’t see that one coming. Formula One is a funny old game. There’s the high-octane track action, which is the obvious centrepiece, but the rumour mill that whirrs away endlessly in the background can be just as interesting, if not more so. Whispers start, and very often they’re denied. At which point you can pretty much guarantee they’re true. They will happen. Like Daniel Ricciardo's exit from McLaren.
This is where the Porsche story becomes entwined with the ebb and flow of Honda’s participation in F1. Honda, as it so often does, decided in 2020 to pull the plug on its F1 programme – and its Red Bull partnership – at the most inopportune time. Since 2015 it had endured a very public drubbing when it returned as a works engine supplier to McLaren. Things didn’t go well. Its engines weren’t just down on power but also dreadfully unreliable.
It did a similar thing as a team owner at the end of 2008. After eight years of underwhelming performances – first as an engine supplier to the BAR team, and then as a full-blown constructor when it took over the Brackley operation in 2006 – it was on the cusp of greatness. By 2007, Ross Brawn was installed as team principle and his team had designed a world-beating car for the start of the 2009 season.
This was a great opportunity for Porsche. It was poised to come in and join forces with a winning team in 2026 and take over the development of the existing Red Bull engine, rather than having to start from scratch like its sister brand Audi is planning. It sounded like the ideal springboard for nailed-on success. There was, however, some confusion surrounding the IP of Honda’s F1 engine.
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