F1 News
These are the candidates who could further develop the Honda engine
- GPblog.com
After Toto Wolff made it clear that his Mercedes team will not sell engines to Red Bull after 2021, the number of options for the Austrian team seems to be decreasing. One of the options left is for Honda to hand over the engine to be further developed by an independent party after 2021. But which parties can Red Bull work with?
Mugen
According to The Race, one of the parties to further develop the 2021 Honda engine could be Mugen. This company has a strong connection with Honda. It was founded in 1973 by Hirotoshi Honda, son of Honda's founder. However, the Japanese car manufacturer has no say in the company, but the two are historically very closely linked. In the past, Mugen has supplied engines to Jordan, Tyrrell, Footwork, Lotus, and Ligier.
Ilmor
Another candidate is Ilmor. Ilmor Engineering was founded in the 1980s by two ex-Cosworth engineers, Mario Illien and Paul Morgan. Ilmor was the company behind the Mercedes F1 engines supplied to McLaren since 1995 and designed and built the 1998 and '99 world title-winning V10s. Ilmor is currently building Chevrolet's IndyCar engines.
Cosworth
Cosworth, like Ilmor, is close to the base of Red Bull's Milton Keynes and is perhaps the most famous independent engine supplier in the history of motorsport, with its DFV design as the dominant engine in F1 for more than a decade after its introduction in 1967. The company currently supplies a hybrid engine for British Touring Cars.
AVL
AVL is based in Graz, close to Red Bull's base. The two companies have worked together on engineering projects in the past, but AVL also has Ferrari among its customers, as well as a number of major OEM car manufacturers. AVL has the specialist engine dyno's needed for F1 testing and Red Bull has tested its Renault engines there in the past.