Red Bull will remain strong with Honda - Alonso

Fernando Alonso says Red Bull will remain a strong team even after switching to Honda power.

Alonso had a bad experience with works Honda engines with McLaren between 2015 and last year.

But he says Red Bull will remain F1’s best chassis maker.

"There is always a reference team with its chassis and it doesn’t matter if it’s Renault or Honda, I don’t think it will change much," the Spaniard is quoted by Marca.

And Zak Brown, who was among those who made the decision to dump Honda, thinks the Japanese manufacturer has improved since the end of the McLaren era.

"Honda has clearly taken a step forward this year and learned from the past three years," he said.

"It’s a great company and of course they have made progress."

But Honda is looking ahead, vowing to work on its ’spec 3’ 2018 engine for Toro Rosso and clearly already preparing for the new works Red Bull era.

"This year’s specification is almost all defined, so the last half of the year will see us focused on developing solutions for the next season," said Masashi Yamamoto, according to Autosprint.

"All other updates will be focused on the engine for next season," he added.

"The first three years with McLaren were very, very, very important, as it was three years of learning what we had lost since the last time we had been in formula one.

"We are very grateful for those three years. Then came the union with Toro Rosso and from the beginning we understood that it would be a great collaboration and that we were ready to take the next step," Yamamoto added.

"We want to win races and, to do so, we decided that joining Red Bull is the right choice."