Honda to Give Red Bull a ‘Party Mode’ for the First Time

The Red Bull F1 team are quite high on confidence ahead of the season opener in Australia. The Austrian outfit believes that they can have an F1 engine ‘party mode’ for the first time, courtesy, 2019 partner Honda.

After 13 seasons with Renault power strapped to the back of their car, they have switched to Honda for this season. The switch comes on the back of a rapidly degrading partnership with with the French engine supplier.

Ever since they penned the deal, Red Bull have seriously hyped up Honda in the middle of 2018. They believe that the Japanese supplier can help them surpass Renault before the end of the season.

“The figures make us really optimistic, also with regard to the increase in performance,” Red Bull motorsport advisor, Dr Helmut Marko told Motorsport.com.

“For the first time we can also celebrate with a ‘party mode’!”

“The Honda engine is already slightly above the Renault engine. If you combine our GPS data with the data provided by Honda, we’ll be in the Mercedes and Ferrari region.

“Of course they’re not sleeping either. But they are already at such a high level that they can no longer make such jumps.

“Even if we should be 10 or 15 kW behind, that was no different in our Renault era with the eight-cylinder engine. We can make up for that.” Marko continued.

According to Red Bull team boss Christian Horner, if they an extra 40kW of power, it could have probably turned the tide of the championship.

Although Red Bull clinched victory in four races in 2018, they were plagued by the usual reliability problems. Renault even confessed that progress was slow in terms of performance.

On the other end of the spectrum, Honda had a fairly strong season after their three disastrous years with McLaren. Granted, they were not spared by the reliability bug, but development in that department softened the blow.

Surprisingly, inspite of all the boasting, Marko has confessed that Red Bull must brace for a problematic first season with Honda.

At the same time, Red Bull took a stab at Renault once again. According to them, Red Bull were portrayed as “whiners”, but the figures told the real story.