As we reported yesterday about Red Bull's plan for honoring its partnership with Honda which is coming to an end at the close of the season, now the Austrian team has revealed the new livery that will be a one-off special for the Turkish GP. Red Bull has revealed a white livery which features "arigato" written in Japanese embossed in black along with more standard Red Bull branding to commemorate the partnership with its engine manufacturer who has finally allowed the Austrian outfit to challenge for the world title for the first time in the turbo-hybrid era of the sport.
"We had all been looking forward to giving Honda's Japanese fans a chance to celebrate our extremely successful relationship in Formula 1, on home soil at Suzuka," said Red Bull team principal Christian Horner.
"With the race falling victim to the pandemic, we just couldn't let the weekend pass without paying tribute to Honda and its amazing home fans by bringing a little bit of its heritage to Istanbul," he added.
The word Arigato means Thank You
Honda's home race was a victim of the pandemic, even though many were hopeful that Honda would get one last hurrah at Suzuka which is just not its home race, but the track itself is owned by Honda. Considering the summer Olympics were just concluded, many were hopeful that the Japanese GP would be allowed, but that didn't happen.
"Everyone at Honda is extremely disappointed that the Japanese Grand Prix has had to be cancelled, while fully understanding and agreeing with the reasons behind this decision. We were especially keen to race at Suzuka Circuit, as it is our last year in the sport, at a time when both our teams are performing very well. We also appreciate that the Japanese fans were particularly looking forward to seeing Honda's last appearance here and Yuki Tsunoda driving in his home race. We know that a special livery cannot replace what would have been a very exciting weekend, but we hope that Honda fans around the world, especially those in Japan, will accept this special livery as a small token of our appreciation of their continued support over so many years," said Koji Watanabe, Chief Officer for Brand and Communication Operations at Honda.
Red Bull drew inspiration from the 1965 Mexican GP winning Honda R272 which was driven by Richie Ginther. Even the Red Bull b-team, AlphaTauri has a new livery that features "arigato" written on the rear wings. Red Bull and Honda have together had 14 victories, 13 with the main Red Bull team and 1 win with AlphaTauri which happened at Monza in 2020 with Pierre Gasly winning. 12 victories were achieved by Max Verstappen, while one win also goes to Sergio Perez who won the race in Baku earlier this year.
Red Bull and Honda partnered for the first time in 2018
Honda and Red Bull first partnered in the 2018 season with AlphaTauri which was called Torro Rosso back then. Then in 2019, the main Red Bull team also switched to Honda power as a part of a works relationship. At the end of the 2021 season, Red Bull will be acquiring the Honda F1 engine IP and many of the staff and assets to form the basis of Red Bull Powertrains which is a new engine manufacturer in the sport.
Honda returned in a disastrous way to the sport in 2015 with its partnership with McLaren that disintegrated at the end of the 2017 season with three failed seasons where it struggled to compete with even Ferrari and Renault leave alone the class of the field Mercedes. And just when it is on the cusp of winning a world championship, its management announced that it would be leaving the sport at the end of 2021, though this decision was taken over a year ago.
