Toro Rosso emerged as a viable option for Honda this season to use their free power-units from the Japanese brand after McLaren lost faith and opted to switch to Renault power this season, also allowing sister team Red Bull to evaluate the Japanese power plants going into 2019 season when their Renault deal is up to renewal.
So far this season, results from Toro Rosso includes an impressive fourth place finish for Pierre Gasly at the Bahrain Grand Prix in April, and team are currently sits seventh place in the Constructors' Standings with 19 points. It was enough confidence for Red Bull to swap over to Honda power next season.
In my opinion, this is no major surprise that the news has happen yesterday. As this has been rumoured for the past weeks that Toro Rosso will swap over to Honda power units for 2018 season.
This is a very good deal for Red Bull, as I believe that the team will be a works team once more (despite Honda saying they are not, despite they will get around £50 million a season from Honda as the works team) for next season.
However, the current Honda power units are still under-powered and still unreliable this season, going into 2019 that needs to be improve going into next season to allow Red Bull to challenge for both titles next season. Despite some people saying its a not a gamble using Honda power, I would say it is as McLaren's last three seasons results showed with a big team that should have won races.
As for the line-up next season, Red Bull will keep Max Verstappen till the 2020 F1 season, Daniel Ricciardo has not signed a deal yet despite Ricciardo winning two Grand Prixs' this season. With the Honda deal in place for the team, my prediction is this Daniel Ricciardo will leave the team at the end of the season with Pierre Gasly replacing him, he will switch to Ferrari; racing alongside Sebastian Vettel next season in my opinion. This is just a guess and a gut feeling.
A new challenge ahead for Red Bull Racing going into 2019 with Honda power.
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