F1: Honda Gifts Max Verstappen 2021 Japanese GP Trophy

Honda and Max Verstappen have a special relationship. It is quite similar to the relationship between the Japanese manufacturer and the late great Ayrton Senna. Now that Verstappen has become the first and only world champion since Honda's return to F1 that relationship is now etched in history considering that the Japanese manufacturer will be leaving the sport at the end of this year. Considering the pandemic, Honda couldn't even celebrate its exit on its home track of Suzuka which it owns and has often hosted the iconic Japanese GP. Now, in honour of the great relationship Honda has had with Verstappen which includes 16 wins and 45 podium finishes, Honda said thank you to their first world champion in 30 years by gifting him the trophy that was designed for this year's Japanese GP which had to be cancelled thanks to the unrelenting pandemic. 

The trophy is commissioned by Honda which owns the legendary Suzuka race track

The Japanese GP was scheduled for October but it was cancelled and replaced by the Turkish GP. The last time a driver won the world driver's championship with Honda power was the late great Ayrton Senna in 1991 in the McLaren Honda. Ironically, Honda's return to F1 was engineered by McLaren in 2015 which hoped to replicate its previous success with Fernando Alonso at the helm. However, the partnership was a disaster for all three parties involved with Honda struggling to match Mercedes and had easily the poorest powerplant on the grid.

McLaren was equally inefficient at designing a car that could make the turbo-hybrid V6 engine work well and the result was a car that particularly in the 2015 and 2017 seasons was not only slow but often unreliable. This left 2-time world champion Fernando Alonso highly unimpressed triggered the divorce between Honda and McLaren. 

Verstappen became the first Honda world champion since Senna

Alonso also left the sport at the end of the 2018 season after McLaren's chassis issues came to the fore with the Renault engine. In this period, Red Bull was having issues with Renault, its long time engine partner which had also launched its works team. Red Bull took a punt on Honda power for its junior Torro Rossi team which worked wonders in 2018 and then it made the shift to Honda power in 2019. In 2021 Honda delivered an engine that it had planned for the 2022 season after its senior management in Japan decided to leave F1. 

This engine was critical as it could match the hyper speed of the Mercedes engine on most days. And when it was tied with Adrian Newey's high rake chassis in the hands of Max Verstappen, the Red Bull RB16B was the car that dethroned the reign of Lewis Hamilton on the last lap of the longest season in the history of F1.