Red Bull and Honda can consider their first season as a partnership a success and even Christian Horner has admitted that. He believes for the first time the promises regarding their engine have been delivered.
Red Bull and Honda enjoyed a successful season together as they achieved three race wins for Max Verstappen. The Dutchman secured a first win for a Honda-powered car in 13 years, before winning in Germany and Brazil later in the season. It was also a successful year for Toro Rosso who scored two podiums.
After a challenging relationship with Renault, Horner believes their partnership with Honda has delivered in 2019.
“Obviously we saw an awful lot of spreadsheets over the years, from Viry [Renault’s engine headquarters] but never realised the potential of what was on those sheets,” Horner told Motorsport.com.
“This is the first year where everything that was promised was absolutely delivered. And it's just a different environment, it’s a different type of partnership.
“It’s a true partnership, and you can see what it means to Honda when they get a result, when they get a pole position and they get a victory, the emotion, the pride, the satisfaction throughout the whole business.
“So I think it’s a very, very different relationship to the one we previously had with Renault during this V6 turbo-hybrid era.”