Honda Reveal Their Game-Changing Farewell Gift to Red Bull F1 & Verstappen

Honda are barely months away from bidding adieu to Formula 1 after the rather mixed stint with McLaren, AlphaTauri, and Red Bull. And the latter of all have shown promising signs of winning the championship from the start of this season.

Hence, with such a golden opportunity in sight, Honda had offered their final gift to Red Bull at Spa where Verstappen dominated his way to pole position. For years, Honda had apparently kept themselves busy by working on a project regarding the battery.

The new battery is lighter in weight along with a significant step forward in energy efficiency. And the project officially reached its end earlier during the summer break.

What did Honda say?

As reported by Marca, Yasuaki Asaki, head of power unit development at Honda, opened up about the new battery in Red Bull. Honda developed this battery with urgency in a bid to help Red Bull secure the much-yearned championship title this season.

“This new battery has been developed in a project that has taken several years, with the aim of combining improvements in energy efficiency with significant reductions in weight,” he said.

“In what will be the company’s final season in the sport, Honda has succeeded in introducing a new battery assembled with a lighter cell, with low resistance, highly efficient and with ultra-high power,” he added.

‘The new battery will help Red Bull with weight distribution’

Asaki went on to reveal that the initial plan was to unveil the battery in 2022. However, citing Mercedes’ potential resurgence late in 2021, Honda had to develop the battery to hand Red Bull the much-needed performance over Mercedes.

“To achieve the ultimate goal of defeating Mercedes and winning the Championship before leaving F1 at the end of the 2021 season, we recognized that we needed to improve performance,” he said.

“Therefore, the development plan for the new battery was substantially ahead of the initial goal of introducing it in 2022. “I mean, the signs have been promising, after a huge amount of work to provide both performance and weight improvements. The latter will help Red Bull with weight distribution.”

Overall, Red Bull are now looking very much prepped up to protect their title hopes from Mercedes, thanks to Honda. So, can the farewell union of Red Bull and Honda put an end to Mercedes’ dominance in the ongoing hybrid era?

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