Despite Red Bull Racing wanting to go ahead with the Australian Grand Prix, Honda felt otherwise. In a recent interview, One of Honda’s senior members revealed that the engine supplier was reluctant to compete in the race weekend.
Honda and Red Bull were at crossroads
McLaren pulling out of the Australian Grand Prix didn’t deter 5 teams from pushing for the race weekend to go ahead. Red Bull and Toro Rosso were a part of the group that wanted to race.
However, Honda who supplies engines to the two teams were against taking part in the race weekend. The Japanese manufacturer was reluctant to move ahead due to the epidemic looming large in the paddock.
This led to a major problem and meant the Japanese supplier had to engage in a difficult conversation with the Milton-Keynes outfit.
Speaking to Autosport, senior Honda member Masashi Yamamoto said:
“Honda considers it very important to think about the customers and that safety is paramount. To postpone an event in such a situation is, therefore, the best choice.”
At Red Bull, what Helmut Marko says, goes. The Austrian is known to rule with an iron first and isn’t used to being told otherwise.
“The conversation with Helmut Marko was certainly not easy, because we also do not know when the next race will be. However, we have not coordinated this with Red Bull. We decided internally that we didn’t want to race and then put that up with Red Bull,”
Marko made it quite clear that he wanted the Australian Grand Prix to move ahead as scheduled.
Honda’s stand is commendable. With the chaos that descended down under, safety was of utmost importance.
Honda had a successful debut partnership with Red Bull last year. The Japanese manufacturer powered the Austrian team to 3 victories last season. More importantly, reliability issues. Which plagued Red Bull during its twilight years with Renault power was finally gone.
Christian Horner hailed the team’s winter test in 2019. The Brit claimed that the team had of its best winter tests since 2013.
With a hungry driver in Max Verstappen and a positive engine in Honda, Red Bull is keen to break its winless slump.
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