The unintended consequences of Red Bull's Honda switch

Red Bull has finally decided to end its relationship with Renault and will start the 2019 season with Honda power. But could this set off a chain of events that will dramatically alter the shape of Formula 1?

Jonathan Noble Jun 20, 2018, 11:01 AM

Upd: Jun 20, 2018, 11:17 AM

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Renault may insist that there was no surprise with Red Bull's decision to team up with Honda in Formula 1 next year, but not everyone is so serene about what has happened.

Plenty of voices emerged to question whether Red Bull's move is clever to swap a race-winning engine that could still yet clinch it this year's championship for a power unit that has never taken a car to a podium finish.

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Author Jonathan Noble

Jonathan Noble is Motorsport.com’s Formula 1 editor. Having graduated from University of Sussex Jonathan worked for sports news agency Collings Sports reporting on F1, F3, touring cars and other sports, with articles appearing in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Reuters, Autosport and other publications. In 1999 he moved to Haymarket Publishing to become a senior editor at Autosport Special Projects, and one year later he became Autosport’s grand prix editor. In 2015 he moved to Motorsport Network, becoming the F1 editor for Motorsport.com. He is also a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, and sits on the FIA Media Council.

Jonathan has won multiple awards for journalism - in 1991 he was the winner of the Guild of Motoring Writers’ Sir William Lyons’ Award for young journalists, in 2010 he was awarded the Outstanding Individual accolade for consumer journalism in the Haymarket wards, in 2011 he won Haymarket’s Scoop of the Year, and in 2018 he was awarded a prestigious Medaglia d’Oro at the Lorenzo Bandini Awards for his contribution to F1 journalism.