“They actually have a racing culture, probably more so than any OEM.” The words of Martin Whitmarsh, now of Aston Martin’s F1 team, talking in his post-McLaren years on the subject of Honda. Whitmarsh signed the contract with Honda to partner with McLaren’s F1 team in 2015, a deal that ended in a fair amount of acrimony – although Whitmarsh was long departed when it all went south. Could Honda’s route back into Formula 1 be with ‘Team Silverstone’, which is currently known as Aston Martin F1 Team and supplied with Mercedes power units? It’s not as unlikely as it first seems… Honda painted itself into a corner by announcing it was withdrawing from F1 at the end of 2021, only to service Red Bull with engines for the time being. Honda then revealed independently to its current partner (which will team up with Ford in three years’ time) that it is considering building a new engine for the next-generation regulations in 2026 after all! With Lawrence Stroll all-in on his F1 project, pumping huge resources into its facilities, what’s to stop him embracing a factory engine project? And if it means rebranding the whole effort as Honda Racing instead of Aston Martin, why not? He’s a master of branding, and likely won’t remain executive chairman of Aston Martin (the automotive company) forever. Stroll wants results from his passion project – by that he means world titles, not podium finishes. Who better to achieve that with than an OEM with a true racing culture? Stranger things have happened. By: Charles Bradley, Global Editor in Chief
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