Red Bull has not yet signed a contract with Honda for its supply of power units for the 2019 F1 season.

The team announced on Tuesday it will use Honda’s engines next year. However the general manager of Honda’s motor sport division, Masahi Yamamoto, said the two parties have only reached a Memorandum of Understanding so far.

“What we first discussed and decided is we are going to supply the power unit and all the details regarding contracts will be discussed from now on,” said Yamamoto in response to a question from RaceFans. “For the next couple of months we’ll go into detail in all the factors in the contract.”

Last year Honda agreed a memorandum of understanding to supply power units to Sauber this season. However Sauber pulled out of the deal after Monisha Kaltenborn was replaced by Frederic Vasseur as team principal.

“We first discussed with Monisha and then Frederic so the three of us first were not under the same platform when we started the discussions,” explained Yamamoto. “Once we got under the same platform we realised there were differences.

“So it’s not that we didn’t agree on something. We discussed, there was no argument. What we decided was we both wanted a step up for the better for both of us and it wouldn’t go that way, so we decided it wouldn’t be the best decision to not continue with what we had planned.”

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Vasseur said there were two reasons why he pulled Sauber out of the Honda deal.

“We need at this stage to have a benchmark and it was quite tough for us to start with Honda alone,” he said.

“The second point in my decision was also that we were not able to do our own gearbox last year and I had the feeling that at one stage McLaren will leave Honda and I didn’t want to be in the position that I have to go to Eric [Boullier] to ask for the gearbox and if he’s focused on the Renault project, it was more than uncomfortable.”

Yamamoto believes supplying both Red Bull-owned teams with power units next year will give it a development advantage over Ferrari and Mercedes, which supply their own teams plus two others on a customer basis.”

“Regarding Ferrari and Mercedes it’s more like a relationship between customers,” he said. “However with us we will have four cars all the information will be totally available with four cars. So we’re confident with the data that we have.”

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

2019 F1 season