The passing of 2025 meant a goodbye to many aspects of Formula 1 as we knew it. Max Verstappen featured in one of the fondest of farewells.

Abu Dhabi 2025 was the last for Max Verstappen and Honda. Verstappen will be powered by the Red Bull-Ford engine from 2026, while Honda begins a new journey alongside Aston Martin. With that, Honda and Verstappen, its Ayrton Senna of this era as declared by Koji Watanabe, went their separate ways.

Honda: Max Verstappen ‘will always be in our hearts’

Want more PlanetF1.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for news you can trust.

For Honda, a shot at redemption emerged alongside Red Bull, after a brutal return to the sport with McLaren. What followed made the bitter past a distant memory.

Initially powering Red Bull’s junior team, Toro Rosso, in 2018, that partnership expanded to Red Bull Racing a year later.

With Honda power, Max Verstappen went on to win four consecutive World Championships between 2021-24, falling just two points short of a fifth in 2025 – almost completing one of the greatest championship comebacks ever seen in Formula 1.

While that did not come to be, the legacy of Verstappen and Honda is secure as one of Formula 1’s elite partnerships. According to Honda HRC president Watanabe, it’s a partnership that elevated Verstappen, according to Honda icon in Japan, just like Ayrton Senna was.

“We have always shared the same goal: to reach the top. I am incredibly grateful to have been able to work with such an exceptional driver, someone who treated our team with honesty and respect,” Watanabe said, according to Italian outlet Formula Passion.

“It’s something we really appreciate about him. And it’s also why our collaboration worked so well.

“Abu Dhabi was a very emotional weekend after seven years of working together. On the one hand, we are looking forward to starting our new adventures, but of course it is also a bit of a sad moment.

“Max is incredibly popular in Japan. People now associate him with Honda, just like in Senna’s day. He has meant a lot to our company. His attitude and trust in our engineers have always been motivating. Max will always be in our hearts.”

For Verstappen to be considered Senna’s equal in Honda circles, is an immense compliment.

It is also a comparison which Verstappen has earned on the track.

Even if a fifth title did evade him in 2025, Verstappen has grown into the almost universally-regarded standard of the Formula 1 grid. He may have lost the title to Lando Norris in 2025, but it still feels like the Max Verstappen era, much as the late 1980s and early 1990s belonged to Ayrton Senna.

More on Max Verstappen from PlanetF1.com

Why Max Verstappen’s F1 2025 comeback is ‘one for the history books’

Verstappen vs Hamilton: Coulthard chooses his GOAT in World Champion shootout

Now almost four decades ago, Honda and McLaren, with Senna at the wheel, was something special. In that era, the Brazilian won all three of his World Championships with a Honda-powered McLaren in 1988, 1990 and 1991.

Verstappen, at this point in his career, has entered the room alongside Senna when discussions are taking place over the greatest of all time. It is no surprise that Honda and its fans took to Verstappen like they did with Senna; two F1 legends flying the Honda flag and taking it to new heights.

Of course, what we don’t know is whether the final chapter of Verstappen and Honda in Formula 1 has yet been written.

F1 2026 is a journey into the unknown, and as the pecking order emerges and evolves, Red Bull knows that it will need to be one of the bigger winners in this shake-up. Falter, and the queue for Verstappen’s signature could well stretch all the way from Milton Keynes to Tokyo.

Verstappen, by his own admission, will be an interested spectator as his former Red Bull colleague Adrian Newey – back alongside Honda at Aston Martin – looks to inject his knowledge from 26 world title wins into the Silverstone outfit, and take it to the top.

Red Bull will have nothing to worry about should it pick up where it left off in 2025. But, the book of Verstappen and Honda cannot be closed and locked away just yet.

Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists.

You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more!

Read next: New Aston Martin clue as Adrian Newey finds agreement over F1 2026 ‘tools’