Wolff: Red Bull climbing Mount Everest with F1 2026 engines

Mercedes chief Toto Wolff thinks Red Bull Powertrains has "Mount Everest to climb" as it introduces its 2026 Formula 1 power units - but he won't underestimate its long-term chances.

After current partner Honda initially decided to pull out of F1 and a subsequent deal with Porsche failed to materialise, Red Bull's former CEO Christian Horner decided the squad would go alone and produce its own engines at its Milton Keynes campus, with Ford eventually joining as a technical partner.

Red Bull recruited and invested heavily for the powertrains entity, joining Audi as new engine manufacturers for the 2026 era of regulations which will do away with the expensive and complicated MGU-H units, and place a bigger emphasis on electric energy from the MGU-K system.

Speaking to select media at the Dutch Grand Prix, including Autosport, Wolff said the "odds are against" his squad's rivals to pull that challenge off, but also didn't want to underestimate its commitment.

"My first answer would be that's Mount Everest to climb, because our engine departments have grown over tens of years," he said.

"Having said that, you can never underestimate anyone in this sport that has the firepower to build something from scratch with new ideas coming in, maybe different ways of thinking in terms of innovation and come out with a product that can be a surprise."

Red Bull Ford Powertrains

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Indeed, few observers are expecting Red Bull's in-house engines to be on par with the likes of Mercedes and Ferrari from year one. But in order to avoid a huge disparity in engine performance across the grid, as last seen between 2014 and 2017 when Mercedes initially stole a march on the rest of the field and Honda struggled for years to become competitive, the FIA will introduce a safety net that will give manufacturers who are significantly behind for development headroom to catch up.

"The odds are against them, but it could be that for whatever reason it flies,” Wolff added. “And even if it doesn't, our engine regulations state today that if you're outside of two percent [three percent - ed] to the best power unit you have more dyno allocation. You can dig yourself out, but obviously that doesn't happen over a race or two and doesn't happen over a season. It needs a while to readjust itself.

"But it's certainly a huge, huge challenge that they've given themselves by doing their own engine. But remember when they took the chassis team over, everybody joked that an energy drink company is trying to compete with Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren in Formula 1. And they won at the end, so maybe we talk differently in five years.

"Because of the complexity of the engines today it is more difficult. But if the engine regulations in four or five years go to a V8 with a more conventional electric contribution [maybe it will be easier].”

The safety net concept in the 2026 power unit regulations is called ADUO, an acronym for Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities, which stipulates that at regular intervals the power unit performance of all the manufacturers will be compared by the governing body. 

Those who have demonstrably fallen behind will then receive extra engine budget cap headroom, dyno hours and the ability to adjust their power unit homologation.

The first such calibration exercise will be performed after the first five grand prix weekends of 2026. The FIA is also working on a safety net for manufacturers who suffer serious reliability issues, which would be particularly crippling under the engine budget cap.