Max Verstappen: McLaren celebrate Honda's win with Red Bull in Austria

Austrian GP

McLaren celebrate Honda's win: 'Good for F1'

Very sporting from Zak Brown!

Matthew Scott

Monday 1 July 2019 15:11

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Zak Brown congratulated Honda on their first win since returning to Formula 1 in 2015, a feat McLaren were not able to deliver in three years of partnership with the Japanese marque.

Max Verstappen's Austrian GP triumph ended a 13-year wait for the 73rd Honda-powered victory in Formula 1.

Honda returned to F1 in 2015 with McLaren, hoping to relive the glory days of their dominance in the 1980s and 1990s with Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost in the famous British squad.

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A world champion pairing of Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button was no help as the Japanese marque were unable to keep pace with Mercedes, Ferrari and even Renault in three years with McLaren.

That relationship eventually came to an end in 2018, with Red Bull's junior team Toro Rosso taking on the Honda power unit.

There were enough signs to convince Red Bull to join them, and Verstappen secured their first podium in a decade in the Australian GP, before going even better to win Red Bull's home race for a second straight year, taking Honda's first win since Button's in Hungary in 2006 for their short-lived works team.

Brown orchestrated McLaren's split from Honda – something that may have hampered the team's efforts to win the Indianapolis 500 with Alonso earlier this year, but the American graciously celebrated the win as something that was "good for F1".

Congratulations to Honda for their success at the Austrian Grand Prix today. Good for the company and good for F1 ?? https://t.co/JNUp5RYGXz
— Zak Brown (@ZBrownCEO) June 30, 2019

Honda were clearly jubilant, several of their staff-members in the Red Bull garage bursting into tears when Verstappen took the chequered flag.

In a list of thanks post-race, McLaren's name was perhaps conspicuous by its absence.

"Thanks to the efforts of all the Honda F1 staff in Japan and the UK, who worked tirelessly on our PU development, we finally made it, our first win in the hybrid era, the first since Hungary 2006," Honda's technical chief Toyoharu Tanabe said.

Every hour on the dyno, every failure, working to be better, working around the clock around the world.

Worth it. #PoweredByHonda

pic.twitter.com/Udh8O0nMtR
— Honda Racing F1 (@HondaRacingF1) June 30, 2019

"We must not forget the great contribution made by Toro Rosso, who helped us get back on the right path last year.

"We have been back in this sport since 2015, but today feels like a new beginning. While we can enjoy the celebrations for a short while, we must get back to work as soon as possible, because we still need to close our performance gap to the quickest teams."