While Honda has already engaged Red Bull in talks about extending their engine supply deal beyond 2021, the Japanese automaker’s situation is suddenly complicated due to challenges faced by its road car division in terms of electrification.
Honda is facing regulatory issues with its petrol and diesel models, meaning they’ll have to invest more money in electrification, in turn resulting in smaller profit margins.
Right now, Honda is only committed to Red Bull and AlphaTauri until the end of next year.
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“We are speaking to Red Bull about the continuation after 2021,” said Honda F1 managing director Masashi Yamamoto in an interview with Autosport. “But the other thing we have to consider is the whole car industry is facing a very difficult situation because of electrification.”
“Many companies have to invest a lot, so we have to kind of think about the business side and how efficient we can run the program. That’s the point.”
Yamamoto’s comments were far kinder than current Renault non-executive board member Alain Prost’s, who argued that the fate of the entire car industry is currently up in the air.
“There’s a lot of stupid regulation going on. We’re going to kill the automobile industry in Europe. It is absolutely stupid,” said the Frenchman.
While Honda is currently focused on F1 , Yamamoto admitted that his company is also keeping an eye on Formula E.
“Obviously we are interested [in Formula E] and we are continuing and collecting the information.”
