Earlier this month, Honda Motor Co Ltd announced that it has decided to conclude its participation in the FIA Formula One World Championship as a power unit supplier at the end of the 2021 season.

In 2015, the company resumed competition in F1, and while initially, experiencing ‘a number of difficulties’ it has achieved some success with Red Bull Racing and Scuderia AlphaTauri, with three wins last season and two wins so far in the 2020 season.

In the meantime, as the automobile industry undergoes a ‘once-in-one-hundred-years period of great transformation’, Honda has decided to strive for the “realisation of carbon neutrality by 2050”, an aim that will see the company funnel its “corporate resources in research and development” into the areas of future power unit and energy technologies, including fuel cell vehicle (FCV) and battery EV (BEV) technologies, which will be the core of carbon-free technologies.

As a part of this move, in April Honda created a new centre called Innovative Research Excellence, Power Unit & Energy. Honda will allocate its energy management and fuel technologies as well as knowledge amassed through F1 activities to this area of power unit and energy technologies.

Honda will continue working with Red Bull Racing and Scuderia AlphaTauri to the end of the 2021 season.