Red Bull chief makes ‘faster than’ Mercedes admission ahead of 2026 engine change

Having committed to Red Bull for 2026, Max Verstappen is said to be “impressed” with what he’s seen and heard from the team’s new power unit, Red Bull Powertrains’ first design in conjunction with Ford.

Red Bull Powertrains division is working on the team’s first in-house power unit that will power Verstappen’s RB22 when Formula 1 embarks on a new technical era next season.

Red Bull: So it’s just this race into who’s going to be ahead by race one

Not only is the sport putting lighter, smaller cars on the grid, but the engine formula is also changing.

The new F1 power units will have triple the electric power of today’s engines in a 50/50 split between the battery’s electrical power and the internal combustion engine. The engine will generate around 400 kW, while the MGU-K will produce 350 kW, an increase of almost 300 per cent.

They will run on 100 per cent sustainable fuels.

The F1 2026 power unit will be the first Red Bull has design itself, doing so in conjunction with partner Ford.

But while the engine project may be a new endeavor for Red Bull Powertrains, the division is headed by technical director Ben Hodgkinson, who spent 20 years with Mercedes and played a huge role in the Brackley squad’s dominant power unit that arrived on the grid in 2014, the last time the sport changed the engine formula.

Hodgkinson accepts Red Bull is having to play catch-up to Mercedes in the engine department.

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“I think they [Mercedes] are likely to be doing well,” Hodgkinson told The Inside Track. “It’s a good company with some good people in it and they’ve got an awful lot of experience.

“I think quite a lot of the power unit is similar to the current generation. They were probably able to start testing way before we were. Sure that gives them a very large advantage.

“There’s something like over 20,000 components in a power unit and normally when you go from one season to the next, you might design or redesign about 600 of them.

“But what we’ve had to do is draw every single one. And so that’s quite a lot of work at the beginning.

“So where we are now, I’m fairly confident that we’re probably developing faster than them. I think we started behind them, so it’s just this race into who’s going to be ahead by race one.”

He believes Red Bull will be amongst the frontrunners.

“I’ve got to believe that’s possible,” he said. “Aiming for anything else is just not what you do. If you’re playing archery, you aim at the middle of the target, it’s what you do.”

It is, however, by no means bullish confidence but rather a belief based on the team and the facilities that Red Bull has built with its powertrain division.

“I’m definitely not confident,” he explained. “You show me someone who is confident in this sport and I’ll show you someone who is about to lose. I think confidence is a mistake because you don’t know where you are.

“What I am confident in is I’ve got the support from Red Bull, the support from Ford, the team that I’ve built and the facility that we’ve got. I’m confident in that. We’ve made the right decisions, it’s just where we are in that race. We’ll have to wait and see.”

Red Bull chief reveals Max Verstappen’s first impression

Hodgkinson revealed Red Bull’s star driver Verstappen recently visited the team’s Powertrain division and was given a tour of the facility as well as his first experience of his 2026 engine.

Verstappen, he says, was impressed with what he saw, and heard.

“I think he was impressed with where we were. We was able to show him just how much hardware is going through our build shots and on our dynos.

“He was able to see some running engines doing laps, so he got to hear what the ‘26 power unit would sound like. I guess he’ll be hearing that just behind his head for quite a number of hours, so it was the first time he got to hear exactly what it sounded like.

“I think he was impressed. Normally when I show people around, they’re flabbergasted at the amount of detail that we go into. This is an exceptional facility put together by a group of really exceptional people.

“And the level of detail we go into on every single element, I think is absolutely vital and trying to get where we aspire to get on the grid and on the podium.

“But when you share that detail with someone, their minds blow. They can’t quite believe how many elements that we dissect.”

Verstappen, though, wasn’t the only one impressed

“Yeah, he has got a great understanding. I’m sure that’s part of his advantage, to be honest,” the technical director added, “and he was asking lots of really intelligent questions as we went around. He really wanted to know more about certain bits that we’re talking about. It was a real pleasure to tell him more about it.

“He was certainly very keen to point out how important it is to have the performance. But I mean, he knew that.

“And so, I guess he very quickly realised that he was walking around with like-minded individuals. I mean, we all are aiming to be at the front. That is the only thing that is success and anything else isn’t good enough. So that’s what we’re pushing for.”

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