Motorengrantor Honda could imagine equipping other teams with drives in addition to Aston Martin, but the current priority is on victories with Aston Martin
Honda will exclusively supply Aston Martin with engines in Formula 1 from 2026 and will not equip any other team with a drive. However, this does not have to be a permanent situation for the Japanese, as the manufacturer would be open to supplying other teams with engines in the future.
“We are a racing company. If the opportunity arises to supply several teams with powertrains, we would be happy to pursue it,” said Koji Watanabe, President of Honda Motorsport Corporation.
“We don’t rule anything out,“ he emphasizes. Nevertheless, the future collaboration with Aston Martin has top priority: ‘Our main focus right now is on building a strong collaboration with our factory partner Aston Martin,’ said Watanabe.
”At this stage, we have no plans to supply our engines to multiple teams and we are not at that point yet.”
Currently, Honda is equipping two teams, Red Bull and Racing Bulls, with its technology. However, since the Japanese factory pulled out in 2021, the engines have been used by Red Bull Powertrains, an engine department founded by Red Bull, with Honda still providing technological support.
However, Honda will officially return to Formula 1 in 2026 and has registered as a manufacturer for the new engine regulations. According to Watanabe, several teams had signaled interest at the time, but in the end they signed an exclusive contract with Aston Martin and so far have had no ambitions to equip another team.
“At the moment, I only have one request to Kakuda: to make sure that we can win with Aston Martin,” says the Japanese in the direction of head of development Tetsushi Kakuda. In the long term, however, an additional team would be a desirable scenario, as this would also allow additional data to be collected for development.
“Currently, we supply several teams with powertrains, and when the situation stabilizes and it becomes possible, we should consider an expansion in this direction,” says Watanabe. ‘However, that is not currently actively in our planning. Kakuda himself has also asked us to allow him to concentrate fully on the current project.’
In Formula 1, Honda has strong competition in the race for customer teams: with Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull Ford and Audi, there are currently four other registered manufacturers, each equipping their own team, and General Motors is also set to join them from 2028.
If you count the Racing Bulls as part of Red Bull, then, as things stand, only McLaren, Alpine, Haas and Williams would not have a natural link to a manufacturer and would therefore be potential customer teams.
