"At the end of ’21 suddenly Red Bull might have a plug-in competitive power unit"

Mark Hughes thinks that Red Bull Racing's plans for 2022 are going to depend very much on what Mercedes has in mind. The Austrian race team would prefer to use the Brackley engines from that season onwards, otherwise a return to Renault seems to be the only option for the team.

"Leaving just Mercedes. It has a Formula E team. Its F1 team is part-owned already by Toto Wolff. It could actually be a less-than-calamitous exit for Mercedes if it too began to think along Honda’s lines," said Hughes, who does see the factory team of the German race formation going on sale in due course. "Especially if it continued to be an engine supplier, thereby gaining some revenue from all that investment."

Red Bull is aiming for a deal with Mercedes

The experienced Formula 1 journalist sees that Red Bull is actually dependent on Daimler as the parent company of Mercedes to sail the course, he says at Motorsport Magazine. "If that happened at the end of ’21 suddenly Red Bull might have a plug-in competitive power unit…"

Honda will continue to supply engines to Red Bull and AlphaTauri until 2021. After seven years, the engine manufacturer will be saying goodbye to Formula 1.