Ford claimed that it and Red Bull will be “unstoppable” with its new engine partnership beginning in 2026 but the Formula 1 team has warned it may struggle for “the first few months”.
Red Bull Racing and sister team Racing Bulls revealed their 2026 liveries as part of Ford Racing’s season launch in Detroit on Thursday night.
The real 2026 cars are yet to be revealed and a big focus through the event was on the engine side, with Ford joining the new Red Bull Powertrains company as a partner for the 2026 rules.
Set up by Red Bull itself with Ford joining afterwards and supporting with some staff and equipment, Red Bull Powertrains is a specialist company that has grown to more than 700 employees and three factories over the last few years – but as a new F1 manufacturer, the odds are against it being the benchmark.
Meanwhile Red Bull Racing CEO and team principal Laurent Mekies said the first season with the team’s own engine “comes with a few headaches, a few sleepless nights, but that’s what fuels us”.
“Going into the first year, going to the first race soon, and thinking to be straight away at the level of the [established] competitors would be naive,” said Mekies.
“We know it’s going to be with a fair amount of struggles, headaches, sleepless nights.
“We will go through the struggle. We will eventually come out on top.
“Bear with us in the first few months. These initial difficulties will be a good reminder of how much we went through to eventually get on top.”
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The messaging was slightly more mixed from Ford’s side, depending on whether it was focused on the short-term or bigger picture.
Ford executive chairman Bill Ford’s claim that “together, we’re going to be unstoppable” was therefore a very bold thing to say on stage – and it clashed slightly with the more cautious immediate messaging from others.
Jim Farley, Ford’s CEO, said “I don’t think anyone truly understands what a mountain it [is] to climb” for example – and described this project as an “underdog”.
“[The challenge is] Ford knows exactly what we need to do to support the Red Bull team,” said Farley on stage.
“That’s the most important thing, that we know exactly how we can help, and make the first race and first part of the season a success.
“That’s what we’re looking for, the clarity of our work.”
Until pre-season testing, there will not be any clues about where the new engine really stacks up.
Red Bull Ford Powertrains technical director Ben Hodgkinson produced an unusual analogy for this as he described it as like running a 400-metre race but in a stadium, alone, in a different country to the competition – and all he knows is they are running as fast as they can.
Hodgkinson’s experience includes being a key figure at Mercedes High Performance Powertrains when that engine proved the clear benchmark for the start of the last new engine rules era in 2014.
That is one of the reasons Red Bull hired Hodgkinson in the first place . He knows what a great engine company looks like and what good or bad preparation is – so all he is talking up is that side of things, not performance.
“We’ve got all the ingredients, whether it will turn into a Michelin meal, we’ll have to see,” he said.
“I’m confident that we’ve built the right company and got the right people.
“I think confidence is something that somebody is about to lose will have, so you’re not going to get more from me than that.”
