00Japanese livery
The white bull comes back.
White with red markings, and no yellow at all. Honda won its first Formula 1 race sixty years ago, and this is the car built to mark it.
01The tribute
This whole car is about one 1965 Honda.
The white comes from the RA272, the car Honda won that first race in. Look down the side of the RB21 and you get the same Japanese flag motif the RA272 carried.
There is an H on the nose, the old Honda logo on the rear bodywork, and a separate mark counting the sixty years.
02The original
The first white car never got its race.
Red Bull tried this once before. The RB16B ran white in 2021 for Honda, who had just announced they were quitting after seven years supplying McLaren, Toro Rosso and this team.
It was meant for Suzuka. That race was cancelled that year, so the car ran white in Turkey instead. People have been asking for it back ever since.
03Max Verstappen
He had already driven the car it copies.
Verstappen drove the actual RA272 in 2019, at Honda's test track in Tochigi. He barely fitted in it.
The pure emotion from the engine and the car itself was incredible.
Max Verstappenon driving the 1965 RA272 at Tochigi in 2019, to Autosport
04The modern
Fans asked for the yellow to go. It went.
The 2021 car kept the team's red and yellow on its white base. The 2025 car drops the yellow entirely, which lands it much closer to the RA272 it was always pointing at. That same white and red later became Championship White, the Honda Type R paint with the red badge.
05The Art Of Livery Design
The team takes its own designs apart.
The Art Of is where the team explains its own artwork. Helmets, suits, liveries. This one was about the Japanese car.
Published 16 April 2025 by Oracle Red Bull Racing. Livery photography by Will Cornelius.