Red Bull To Bid Honda Goodbye From F1 With Special Livery At Turkish GP

Red Bull and Honda have been great partners since 2018 ever since, Honda was chosen to power Torro Rosso the junior Red Bull team. Since then the partnership has gone from strength to strength with Red Bull finally being able to challenge for the world title in 2021. However, this partnership is coming to an abrupt end thanks to the Honda management pulling the plug on the F1 project. But the relationship has been so good between the two companies that Honda even is helping Red Bull create the engine which for 2022 and beyond which will not even bear the Honda branding.

Honda is selling its F1 engine IP to Red Bull which is forming the basis of Red Bull Powertrains. The Honda team even brought forward its 2022 development to 2021 which given Max Verstappen the prodigious engine that's causing headaches for Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes. In honour of this relationship, Red Bull is going to be running a special livery that says "arigato" which is Japanese for "thank you".

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Interestingly, this livery was added to the official F1 2021 game which was spotted by Decalspotters. Also, Red Bull's profile photo has gone from purplish-blue to white which could also form the basis of the colour of the car at the Turkish GP. This also comes after Honda's home race at Suzuka, a track that's owned by the team, was cancelled by the Japanese government despite hosting the Olympics.

Honda and Red Bull are desperate to help Max Verstappen win his first title and end the dominating run of Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes. Mercedes has won every world title since 2014 and Hamilton has won all the driver's titles save for the one in 2016 which was won by his teammate Nico Rosberg.