Red Bull have identified greater “focus” with Honda as the main difference compared with the Renault engine partnership.
The Milton Keynes outfit ended a 12-year-old association with the French manufacturer at the end of 2018 after tensions had grown over the lack of performance and reliability during the hybrid era.
So far with Honda, results have remained the same but behind the scenes, team boss Christian Horner admits it is quite different.
“The great thing about working with Honda is that they are fully focused on Aston Martin Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso,” he said in an interview for fuel and lubricants supplier ExxonMobil.
“Previously, Renault had their own works team – and fuel supplier – and we had to wait in the queue to be able to run that power unit.”
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When Red Bull and ExxonMobil teamed up in 2017, it created a unique scenario when a customer team was using a different supplier than the manufacturer.
“[The] only [reason why] we were able to run the last spec of engine in 2018, which the works team did not, because it worked with ExxonMobil products. It’s a totally different relationship,” Horner revealed.
“Honda is pushing ExxonMobil hard and ExxonMobil are coming up with a lot of product variants at the moment. It’s great to see that relationship working as fluidly as it is,” he added.
“We are very much involved in discussions about Honda’s development path and what role fuel and engine oil plays within that.
“It’s a triangular partnership between Aston Martin Red Bull Racing, Honda and ExxonMobil where everyone is bringing something to the party. It’s very exciting.”
In a time of such restricted regulation, fuels and lubricants do remain one key area of unlimited development, with Ferrari supplier Shell believes to be a key part in their engine gains over the past year.
And the Red Bull boss talking up the importance of the Honda/ExxonMobil partnership.
“We are seeing great progress being made as the two companies work collaboratively,” he noted.
“We wouldn’t have won any of those races without the right fuel and engine oil in the car. They are enormously important to us.
“We have had seven victories in our relationship so far and we are keen to add to that in the near future.”
