Red Bull’s "smart and clever" answer to 2026 F1 rules conundrum  

For the past few months a phoney war has been brewing in the Formula 1 paddock, as gossip has circulated about the state of preparations for the all-new regulations coming next season.

Specifically, well-connected sources have repeatedly claimed that Red Bull’s new in-house engine project is some way short of where it needs to be, while Mercedes is said to be in the best shape.

Although this may or may not be true, ahead of when the hybrid powertrains were introduced in 2014, mutterings to the effect that Mercedes had found a solution to the ERS-H issues which bedevilled all the other engine manufacturers turned out to be bang on the money.

While the ERS-H has been dropped from the new regulations for precisely this reason, the requirement for the electrical system to provide 50% of the power has brought challenges of its own in terms of managing the available power throughout the lap.

Five years ago Red Bull went on a recruitment spree to build its own in-house powertrain division, as Honda indicated it would withdraw from F1. Despite input from Ford, and the headhunting of senior figures from Mercedes in particular – including technical director Ben Hodgkinson – it was exceedingly ambitious to expect to be able to build a competitive powertrain immediately from a standing start.

But Red Bull’s motorsport advisor Helmut Marko, while treading around the subject of where the new powertrain might stack up relative to its competitors, was emphatic that Max Verstappen’s skillset would provide a decisive boost.  

Red Bull Ford Powertrains

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

"Internally we are happy," he said, "but like the others we don't know the numbers from our competitors. But it's not only the combustion engine, it's fuel, it's battery... and the car. And it's also what I think is a big advantage for us.

"The driver has to be smart and clever how to use the power from the battery. And there is one driver who can drive fast and think. So that should be an advantage."

Though he did not mention Verstappen by name, it was clear he was referring to the four-time world champion – for he, along with all the genuinely great drivers, requires so little thought to drive quickly that he retains a significant quantity of mental bandwidth to apply to racecraft.

The 2026 cars will place very different and complex demands on the drivers, hence the amount of negativity generated by their first evaluations in the simulator. On top of active aerodynamics, there will be an ‘override mode’ which deploys an extra burst of energy for a limited time, essentially replicating the effect of DRS.

But there are likely to be tremendous subtleties in terms of setting the cars up in the first place - as well as operating them on track. What the new regulations have done is couple energy management to aerodynamics: there will be hard choices to make regarding downforce levels and, once out on track, where to harvest energy and where to deploy it.

"Immense and plenty," was Red Bull chief engineer Paul Monaghan’s response, when asked how complex the 2026 project had been and how much work remained in the two months before the cars hit the track.

F1 concept

Photo by: FIA

"Two very simple words to sum it up. Some things are already set in stone. The engines are in manufacture. We've got large chunks of the car in manufacture. Getting a car to reliably do laps in a simulation world is proving quite difficult, but somehow we'll be ready for Barcelona [the first test, behind closed doors on 26-30 January], won't we?

"As will everybody else. How ready we will see – and then really it's quite a mountain to climb, 2026, but it's there for all of us to climb, isn't it?

"If we're at the summit first or if we're at the summit and others are already there, that's part of the sport. It's not a determined outcome. It's an unknown outcome and we I think can be competitive next year.

"I think we'll have a good car, a good engine. We've got awesome drivers so let's see how we get on."