Honda and the challenges for the umpteenth return to F1 in 2026

When it was announced last year that Honda would officially return to F1 with Aston Martin, one of the problems that the Japanese would have to deal with would be the reassembly of its structure. After all, a good part of its staff had moved to Red Bull Powertrains, a company created by the Taureans to be able to take care of the current power units and develop new types for 2026.

This Wednesday (27), the racing division, Honda Racing Corporation, announced the formal creation of the British subsidiary, HRC UK. This will be responsible for the maintenance and preparation of current Honda Power Units, as well as beginning work towards the partnership with Aston Martin.

For now, the official address is the British headquarters of the Japanese automaker. However, a series of signings should begin in the coming weeks (including the return of some who went to the Red Bull world). The old base was in Milton Keynes and today Honda uses a Mugen unit, which is located in front of the old structure, which is now owned by Red Bull Powertrains. If Honda decides to maintain activities at this location, it will be 20 km from Aston Martin’s new headquarters.

It wasn’t just the structure, but a good part of the staff also migrated to RBPT (around 150 people, according to the Italians at FUnoAnalisiTécnica). This leads to a major reassembly that was already expected to be carried out by the Japanese (we talked about this here last year). However, the Japanese brand’s statement clarifies some points…

When there was the Honda/Red Bull agreement to transfer the current PU to bullfighting management, it was not very well explained how the roles would be divided. As there was a transfer of people and facilities, it was thought that Red Bull would take over everything. But for reasons of industrial secrecy, part of the intellectual rights remained with Honda.

With the success of Red Bull, Honda once again put its name more prominently on Red Bull and Alpha Tauri cars. And the statement made it clear that Honda currently carries out the manufacturing and maintenance work on the Power Units, with Red Bull PowerTrains being responsible for manufacturing and operating the UP batteries. In other words, even with the transfer of Intellectual Rights (as required by the regulations), the dirty work continues to be done in Japan by the Sakura laboratory team, including the tuning for the races.

This could be the big “leap”. Even when there was a British base, the main work was done in Japan. Therefore, the loss of personnel may not be so critical, although several old-school technicians who worked on the competition side since the 1980s have left. Today, the development area is led by Ikuo Takeishi, who took over last year from Yasuaki Asaki, directly responsible for the current engine. Not to mention that the battery department was where Honda made huge gains over the years. In this new regulation, the difference will come from the electrical part, which will represent almost 50% of the total power of the power units.

The work will be carried out by the Research & Development team. The first prototypes are already running on the dynamometer, but no results have been released. What is expected is that this time Honda does not waste so much time on pride and allows itself to have external support so that it can be competitive from the beginning. However, with a new structure being set up and a new team to work with… some noise may appear until everything settles down. And it may be too late.