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Red Bull Racing's special one-off livery for the 2021 Turkish Grand Prix
Red Bull Racing and Scuderia AlphaTauri raced with special liveries on what was Honda’s last F1 season with the teams. Find out what the look was here.
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At the 2021 Formula One Turkish Grand Prix, Red Bull Racing and Scuderia AlphaTauri raced with unique liveries to celebrate the teams’ race-winning alliance with power-unit supplier Honda. The teams changed from their usual livery to give the engine manufacturer’s fans in Japan a chance to wave farewell to the company on their then exit as engine suppliers from F1.
The livery was set to appear at the Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka that year but it was was unfortunately cancelled due to the pandemic, and so the livery was raced at the Turkish Grand Prix instead.
The twin Red Bull Racing RB16B cars of Max Verstappen and team-mate Sergio Pérez featured a predominantly white livery inspired by the legendary Honda RA 272 car, in which US racer Richie Ginther secured the company’s maiden Formula One win at the 1965 Mexican Grand Prix.
The white livery for the RB16B cars took inspiration from the past
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
The livery chosen for our cars pays homage to Honda’s remarkable F1 journey and hopefully we can give fans another victory in those legendary colours
Meanwhile, at AlphaTauri, the rear wings of the AT02 cars driven by Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda will feature the one-word message ありがとう(arigato,) meaning ‘thank you’.
Red Bull’s partnership with Honda was launched in 2018. The Japanese manufacturer has helped both Red Bull Racing and AlphaTauri to reach the top of the Formula One podium during its partnership; with Red Bull Racing scoring 16 victories and AlphaTauri taking a memorable win on home soil in Italy in 2020.
Max Verstappen will be hoping to deliver a win in the legendary colours
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
The cars have a simple message, arigato, meaning ‘thank you’
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
Red Bull Racing Honda CEO and Team Principal, Christian Horner said at the time: “We had all been looking forward to giving Honda’s Japanese fans a chance to celebrate our extremely successful relationship in Formula One, on home soil at Suzuka. With the race falling victim to the pandemic, we just couldn’t let the weekend pass without paying tribute to Honda and its amazing home fans by bringing a little bit of its heritage to Istanbul. The livery chosen for our cars pays homage to Honda’s remarkable F1 journey and hopefully we can give fans another victory in those legendary colours this weekend.”
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