“We wouldn’t have been successful with McLaren” – Honda boss on how Red Bull’s “different” approach helped their turnaround

Honda F1 boss Masashi Yamamoto believes the engine manufacturer wouldn’t have been successful with their erstwhile partner McLaren in F1. The Japanese engine manufacturer returned with the Woking-based team to the sport for the fourth time in 2015.

In an interview with RN365, Yamamoto said:

“If we had continued with the McLaren project, I don’t really think we could have been successful, nor McLaren either.”

“The biggest reason probably is the shape we have started wasn’t really right. So, the project needs to be started with the right shape or communication, which we could not with McLaren.”

Yamamoto believes Red Bull’s different approach to communication played a key role in their turnaround after a few disastrous seasons with McLaren. Unlike McLaren, Red Bull/Toro Rosso reportedly encouraged Honda to negotiate directly with the FIA and helped them gain more understanding during their development.

“With McLaren, they said ‘we take care of the politics and everything, so you just focus on making engines.’ That was the role.”

“The change for myself is that after starting with Toro Rosso, Franz said ‘you should speak to F1, you should speak to the FIA.’”

“And that’s something we could have done with Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso. That was very key.”

“We started from zero. That was a restart and we needed it. So, we stepped in a little bit more after starting with Red Bull.”

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Honda's premature F1 return with McLaren laid foundation for later success

The 2013 and 2014 F1 seasons saw McLaren go through disastrous campaigns. Subsequently, the team underwent significant changes in their operational structure, in an effort to return to their race-winning ways.

One of the key changes McLaren did was change engine partners – from Mercedes to Honda. The team believed that a “works team” with greater synergy between chassis and engine department would be better suited for championship success.

Honda, however, were severely underprepared when they first entered the sport in 2015 – their engine was low on power and unreliable. Combined with communication issues between the two parties, along with team politics, meant that the McLaren-Honda partnership went backwards rather than returning to the top of the grid.

After just three seasons, McLaren ditched Honda, blaming their failures on the Japanese manufacturer, and switched to Renault engines. Starting in 2021, however, McLaren went back to Mercedes engines.

Meanwhile, Honda partnered with Toro Rosso (now Alpha Tauri) for 2018 in preparation for their link-up with the senior Red Bull team from 2019 onwards. So far, the partnership has been successful, yielding more than two dozen wins and an F1 world championship.