F1 | Red Bull on the hunt for a new engine for 2019: negotiations with Honda begin

Red Bull Honda: off to the dance. Negotiations have officially begun between the Milton Keynes team and the Japanese company to find an engine supply agreement for 2019 and beyond: it was revealed Masashi yamamoto, head of Honda Motorsport, following a meeting with Helmut Marko, advisor to Red Bull, in the Baku paddock. The outcome of this first interview was positive: "We sat down formally for the first time and we started talking about the specific requirements of the agreement” – explained Yamamoto. “Red Bull is a competitive team and Honda would be willing to supply the engines if there was the opportunity. We moved from having informal discussions to having formal negotiations and confirmed our points of view. Now we are at the beginning of the process”.

Having archived the disappointing three years alongside McLaren, Honda has embraced the Toro Rosso project: the Red Bull "junior team" is acting as a guinea pig with a view to a future partnership between the Tokyo engine manufacturer and the parent company. If you are satisfied with the performance of the Honda engine, Red Bull would not renew the agreement with Renault, current supplier, expiring at the end of 2018.