I haven't seen it mentioned here yet, but Honda announced that they would be extending their involvement in F1 to 2021, but anything beyond that is dependent upon the final power unit regulations. They had previously said they would be here through 2020.
In the Motorsport Magazine article listed below is a quote from Honda COO (who is not a fan of F1)
Quote:
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One of our goals is to make Honda a company that society wants to exist. In order to achieve this objective in the fast-changing environment, we have formulated the 2030 vision to provide new value unique to Honda. One of the keys to achieving this objective is in reducing CO2 output.’ A petrol-burning formula, hybrid or not, might not resonate much with an automotive company looking to move to electrical, hydrogen and fuel cell technology.
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Honda is looking for some type of freeze on development of the internal combustion engine in 2022 and beyond. I assume the source articles are accurate in their wording in that they mention the ICE part of the larger power unit. So they may very well be OK with some ongoing development on the hybrid side? In 2021 cost cap rules will also impact power unit development including limits on how many hours devoted to running test bed engines. I think this is things such as single cylinder test units to test things like combustion tweaks, etc. This is likely welcome news for Honda, but they may want more.
In the end, Honda was OK with increasing their budget to catch up, but now that they seem to have mostly caught up (or are at least very close and with known developments yet to come), they are wanting to reduce that part of the F1 budget. It's probably hard to justify the level of spending internally, but a lower budget might be OK.
Of course, all of this is part of the manufacture/F1/FIA dance that is negotiations for the finalization of future Power Unit regulations.
Some good links that talk specifics
https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/o...-contract-year
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/h...-2021/4602421/
https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/...paren-ab-2022/
Richard