Honda marks 500th F1 weekend, but Red Bull years go uncounted

Honda is marking its 500th Formula 1 Grand Prix weekend under its own name at the United States Grand Prix, but the official tally leaves out its successful Red Bull years from 2022 to 2025. The 2022 races ran under Red Bull Powertrains; in 2023, Honda RBPT was formally a separate entity from Honda.

Honda's story began as a constructor, not as an engine supplier. It entered in 1964 as a full works team after a planned engine deal with Team Lotus collapsed just before the season. The company built the RA271 around a transverse V12 and took its first Grand Prix win in Mexico in 1965.

As a supplier to other teams, Honda made its F1 debut with Spirit at Silverstone in 1983. Keke Rosberg delivered Williams-Honda's first victory in that role in 1984, and Honda's first constructors' title followed in 1986. Then came McLaren: 15 wins from 16 races in 1988, followed by four constructors' championships in a row from 1988 through 1991, with Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost sharing the drivers' crowns.

Honda withdrew as a works team after 2008, a direct consequence of the global financial crisis. It announced a return in 2013 and rejoined as McLaren's engine supplier in 2015. The new hybrid V6 turbo regulations were the main reason for the comeback: energy recovery through the MGU-K and MGU-H was closely connected to road-car development.

The McLaren partnership started badly. McLaren's compact “size zero” design forced Honda into an engine layout that did not work; cooling problems and a failing MGU-H compounded the trouble. The 2017 architecture brought vibrations, oil-tank problems and further MGU-H failures, leading to retirements and repeated grid penalties. The partnership ended in September 2017.

Toro Rosso became Honda's proving ground in 2018, with an open technical collaboration that helped persuade Red Bull Racing to take Honda power units from 2019. The first victory of the hybrid era came in Austria that year; the partnership later won drivers' and constructors' titles.

Now Honda is again an official factory power-unit supplier, this time to Aston Martin. The Silverstone team has moved from customer status to a full works operation, with the RA626H as its foundation.