Proactive Investors - Aston Martin (LON:AML) has agreed a deal for Japanese car maker Honda to power its Formula 1 cars from 2026.
Honda (TYO:7267) currently powers the dominant Red Bull team, but that deal ends in 2026 with the Austrian team to work after then with Ford to build its own engines.
Aston Martin’s F1 team is a separate entity from the London-listed car maker Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings PLC, but the two have the same chairman in Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll and AML uses the F1 team to help build its brand.
Honda officially pulled out of F1 in 2021 though has kept supplying Red Bull but said the decision of the sport’s governing body (FIA) to target carbon neutrality by 2030 had encouraged its return.
Starting in the 2026 season, the FIA has specified all fuels must be carbon-neutral fuel and electrical power usage increased three-fold.
Honda Racing Corporation president Koji Watanabe said in a statement: "With this massive increase in electrical power, the key to winning in F1 will be a compact, lightweight and high-power motor with a high-performance battery that is capable of swiftly handling high power output as well as the energy-management technology.
"We believe this know-how gained from this new challenge has the potential to be applied directly to a future mass-production electric vehicle."
Like its F1 associate, which has been a major success story this year so far, luxury carmaker AML has been recovering after a disastrous float in 2018 that subsequently saw nearly all of its value wiped off.
Only last week, AML announced a £234mln investment from car maker Geely to help it upgrade its luxury ranges to electrical power and target the Chinese market.