Red Bull Racing have taken the unprecedented decision to move from a customer F1 team who buy in their power units, to the first such outfit of their kind in history to attempt to develop their own for the 2026 season where new FIA specifications for the current hybrid units commence.
Whilst the move may be be considered arrogant by some, Red Bull were left little choice when their current suppliers Honda decided to pull the plug again on their F1 commitments. Having almost found themselves with no powertrain supplier following their messy divorce with long time partner’s Renault, Red Bull pulled off a last minute deal to secure a deal with Honda who themselves were coming out of a poisonous relationship with McLaren.
The beginning of the end of the Red Bull-Honda partnership came in October 2020, when the Japanese auto manufacturer announced the would leave F1 come the end of 2021. The corporate wisdom at the time was that Honda would become completely committed to electrification along with fears over the financial implications from the Covid-19 global pandemic.
Red Bull stranded by Honda decision
“Honda needs to funnel its corporate resources in research and development of future power unit and energy technologies,” said a statement issued by Honda which meant a pricey F1 programme was no longer relevant to their future.
Mercedes and Ferrari indicated they would not supply one of their closest rivals and with the smouldering ashes of the Renault relationship still alight, one of the biggest teams in F1 appeared to be left high and dry come the 2022 season.
The announcement from Honda was a shock right across the paddock, although on reflection Christian Horner had this to say. “I am a great believer in fate. It was during COVID that Honda decided to withdraw, so that left us with a choice”, said the Red Bull team boss. “We wouldn’t get an engine from Mercedes and at Ferrari, we weren’t sure how many cylinders we would get from Renault – we had been there and done that, to go back again didn’t feel right. It felt like it almost forced our hand to say ‘okay, let’s make a decision’.”
There was talk for a while of Red Bull acquiring the intellectual property to the Honda power unit but as Christian Horner explained: “Having explored that it became more and more complex, because that process is not just about building engines, it is way more than that with the supply chain and so on.”
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A compromise arrangement was reached between the parties as Honda Racing Corporation boss, Kofi Watanabe revealed: “We announced stopping our Formula 1 activities, but after discussions with Red Bull, they wanted us to continue the activities. That’s why we became a kind of technical support since then. In fact, we still operate everything on the power unit side.”
With the FIA starting to move the goalposts for the new 2026 F1 power units, to include 100% bio fuels and a greater electrical component, Honda not for the first time in their F1 history performed an about turn. “From Honda’s point of view, the new F1 regulations for 2026 with the combustion engine being fifty percent and the electrical parts being fifty percent are very attractive to both Honda and Honda Racing”, Watanabe explained. “The direction with the carbon-neutral fuel is very good for us as well, so that is basically why we decided to officially return to Formula 1.”
Despite Honda offering to remain the sole supplier to Red Bull and their sister team, times had moved on with the Milton Keynes based squad having decided to build their own. With tens of millions invested by the energy drinks parent company in setting up Red Bull powertrains, the die was cast yet both parties did discuss the option of some kind of collaboration for 2026 and beyond.
“During our regular conversations we discussed the option of Red Bull doing the internal combustion engine themselves and us doing the electrical parts”, Watanabe revealed. “But that wouldn’t have been easy at all if they only made the ICE and we did the electrical parts, so in the end we found out that it was impossible to collaborate under these conditions.”
Ford believed to be merely a sponsor
Fortunately for Honda, Lawrence Stroll who owns Aston Martin, was investing hundreds of millions in the Silverstone based F1 team and as is always the nirvana for a chassis only F1 manufacturer, the offer came along for them to become a ‘works team’ with exclusive powertrain supply from Honda.
Meanwhile Red Bull had moved on and at the launch of their 2022 RB18 came the big announcement that Ford were to become a partner in the development of the 2026 power unit. Initially it was believed this was merely a badging exercise which would allow the famous blue oval logo to return to F1, the scene of decades of success in yesteryear.
Ford remain the third most successful manufacture of F1 engines in the history of the sport, with 176 Grand Prix victories to their name behind Mercedes with 222 and Ferrari with 249. Over the two years since the partnership was announced, it has become evident the Ford are not just a sleeping partner with a large chequebook, but the US car giant have contributed significantly in the electrified element s of the new V6 hybrids.
Further, TJ13 reported last week that Ford are contributing in a number of other ways to the Red Bull power unit development, as Christian Horner revealed when speaking at a Ford performance event in the USA. “We’re under no illusions that we’ve got great mountains to climb, we’ve got 48 weeks of flat-out development and durability testing to get the engine into as competitive a position as we can to start racing in 2026”.
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Cutting edge technology delivered to Red Bull
Red Bull will leverage Ford’s cutting edge 3D printing technologies which will add precision and speed to the manufacturing of crucial components, as Ford Performance Motorsports Powertrain Manager Christian Hertrich revealed how complex this aspect of engineering has now become.
“It’s not things like nuts and bolts and easy stuff,” Hertrich explained. “These are complex metal and polymer parts that get tested to extremes so they can withstand races that average 200 miles an hour.”
The scale of the Ford increased involvement is staggering as a plethora of their divisions have been called upon to provide input. “We’re pulling in all of these Ford teams with all of these areas of expertise to help in the program. It’s not just the motorsport group working on this. It’s amazing to see how many different areas of the company have already been involved,” concluded Hertrich.
The Red Bull boss has repeatedly stated both Red Bull and Ford are hitting their development and performance targets, yet there is no way of knowing how any of the power unit manufacturers developments compare to each other.
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Persistent rumours have abounded that Red Bull are struggling to match the performance of their rivals and Jos Verstappen has made it clear he is concerned over the competitiveness of the project which may affect the long term decisions of his world champion son Max.
Toto Wolff made it plain to all who would listen last year, that he believes as in 2014 Mercedes will deliver the most powerful and reliable of the new breed of F1 powertrains. With doubts over Red Bull’s ability to pull of the impossible and match the performance of the Ferrari and Mercedes, the mood music in the Verstappen camp is they are keeping their options open beyond 2026.
Now Italian publication AutoSprint reports this week there is trouble in Milton Keynes as their power unit is not delivering the kind of performance that was previously expected. More worrying is that the bigger problem is in the arena of reliability, something red Bull suffered with the early Renault hybrids produced from 2014.
As Christian Horner stated, there remain twelve months for Red Bull to fine tune their engine project before it takes to the track in Barcelona for its first test next year. With no F1 engine manufacture ever having built a championship winning engine in their first year, the omens are against Red Bull Racing.
Yet maybe Red Bull will crack this conundrum, creating history and at the same time retaining their most valuable asset – Max Verstappen.
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Sergio Perez was sacked by Red Bull Racing following the 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix despite having a year remaining on his contract. The Mexican driver had an annus horribilus having started the season with four podiums in the first five race weekends.
With 85 points to his name following round five in China, Perez was looking good for another P2 in the drivers’ championship but then his world crumbled as his points tally for the next nineteen rounds was a mere 67.
To the very end, Perez insisted he would be driving for Red Bull this year as he had a contract, yet it appears from a negotiating point of view, this was a necessary position for him to take in order to maximise his payout for breach of contract by Red Bull Racing…. READ MORE
With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
Some reliability struggles are definitely inevitable due to Red Bull being new to PU manufacturing & for that matter, reliability could also be an initial issue for Audi since they’re new to hybrid F1 powertrains, specifically.
However, Honda’s back-&-forth decisions indeed put Red Bull in a difficult situation by effectively forcing them to go their own way with Ford’s technical support.
On the other hand, Aston Martin became the biggest beneficiary by securing an exclusive PU supply deal.