Red Bull plays down Toto Wolff’s ‘benchmark’ claim
A shot of the Red Bull RB22’s rear end, which shows off their cooling layout, including the shoulder vents and large rear cooling cannon. Also note that Red Bull have opted for a winglet arrangement beside the crash structure.
Toto Wolff may have labelled Red Bull’s new power unit the benchmark, but Pierre Wache insists it is all part of the pre-season chess match.
A hot topic for this pre-season is Formula 1’s new engine formula, with compression ratios, launch revs, and energy deployment all being closely scrutinised.
Red Bull tech boss insists pre-season praise is part of F1’s political ‘game’
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Adopting new regulations, this year’s engines are powered by a 50/50 split between electrical and combustion power, the latter fuelled by fully sustainable biofuels.
Mercedes, which dominated the V6 hybrid era – the last time F1 overhauled its engine regulations – was tipped as the pre-season favourite after the first behind-closed-doors test in Barcelona last month.
But according to Wolff, it is Red Bull’s power unit that has been the most impressive.
Red Bull produced its first in-house power unit for 2026 after officially saying goodbye to Honda at the end of last year.
Asked to assess Red Bull’s performance as an engine manufacturer, Wolff said: “Well, I was hoping that they were worse than they are, because they’ve done a very good job.
“The car, the power unit are the benchmark at the moment, I would say. And then obviously you have Max in the car. That combination is strong.”
Wache, however, put Wolff’s comments down to the “games” that are played in the paddock.
“I’m surprised that the engine people did a fantastic job and be able to put a car together and run so many miles,” Wache told PlanetF1.com and other media outlets in Bahrain.
“I will not say we are the benchmark, because I think everybody knew in this room that it is a game that everybody’s playing.
“But we have to recognise also that the fantastic job that the engine people have [done] as a startup – because it is a startup.
“Three-and-a-half years to make an engine, be able to be not stupid on the track, is a massive achievement.”
More on Formula 1’s engine controversy
Opinion: Formula 1 is undermining innovation with 2026 engine politics
Mercedes F1 2026 compression ratio debate nears boiling point ahead of homologation
While teams often talk up their rivals as the ones to beat, for Mercedes, there’s an added incentive as it is understood Mercedes’ engine faces a crucial supermajority vote after Mercedes HPP found a loophole in the compression ratio wording that has rivals concerned Mercedes and its customers could gain an advantage.
Should Mercedes lose the vote, there could yet be a potential regulation tweak regarding the measuring of the compression ration before homologation of the power units on March 1.
Wolff also talked up Red Bull’s energy deployment, claiming it was able to deploy more on the straights than Mercedes.
“Look at the energy deployment,” he said. “They are able to deploy far more energy on the straights than everybody else. On a single lap we’ve seen it before, but now we’ve seen it on 10 consecutive laps with the same kind of straight-line deployment.”
While Red Bull’s advantage, at least according to Wolff, would be beneficial in qualifying, if the RBPT engine was able to do it over 10 or more laps, i.e. in race trim, that would give the Red Bull Powertrain cars a telling advantage over their rivals in grands prix as well.
However, Wache reckons that while that may have been the situation on the opening day of the three-day Bahrain test, by Day Three rivals had caught up and perhaps even surpassed Red Bull’s energy deployment.
“It’s difficult to say,” the Frenchman declared.
“It’s true that during the first day we were a little bit closer to where we should have [been], and you start to see the tendency of the others going to the same direction and now I will say a little bit better than us.
“I think maybe our simulation people in our factory [were better at coming out of the blocks faster than others].”
Additional reporting by Thomas Maher
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