The McLaren Formula 1 team announced that their association with engine partners Mercedes-Benz would expire at the end of the 2014 world championship to make way for a re-union with Honda.
The Japanese manufacturer that powered the British team to four consecutive drivers’ and constructors’ titles from 1988 to 1991 made the announcement that had been rumored since last year.
Talk of Honda’s return to F1 with McLaren had first been reported in Germany’s auto motor und sport. The impending change in F1’s engine regulations from 2014 was confirmed as the reason for Honda’s decision to return to the sport where they had also powered Williams F1 to championship glory.
“Honda has a long history of advancing our technologies and nurturing our people by participating in the world’s most prestigious automobile racing series,” said the company’s president and CEO Takanobu Ito. “The new F1 regulations with their significant environmental focus will inspire even greater development of our own advanced technologies and this is central to our participation in F1.”
McLaren will continue with Mercedes as an engine supplier in 2014 when the brand new 1.6-litre turbocharged V-6 engines make their debut.
In an odd twist, Honda will be replacing an engine manufacturer that bought out the team with which the Japanese firm made it’s last foray in F1, i.e. Mercedes. The team based in Brackley, in Great Britain was known as Honda Racing until 2008, before the global recession forced the company’s board to end their involvement in F1. After a championship winning season as Brawn GP the team was bought by Mercedes.
The German firm has also been able to lure Lewis Hamilton away from McLaren this year. Hamilton had been associated with the team since his karting days in large part to the 2008 world champion’s idolization of Aytron Senna and his Honda powered glory days with the team (in pics, ca. 1989).
The deal with McLaren is not to be an exclusive as Honda stated it is keen to supply at least one customer team as well.
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