Mekies keeping expectations in check for Red Bull’s new power unit

Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies says it would be “very naive” to expect its new power unit to be competitive with rival manufacturers in its debut season.

Red Bull created its own engine facility ahead of the new power unit regulations for 2026, with Red Bull Ford Powertrains based at its Milton Keynes factory and producing a V6 turbo that includes Ford influence relating to battery technology and manufacturing. But having built the new organization up from scratch rather than taking over an existing entity, Mekies warns Red Bull is likely to be behind established manufacturers at the start of the year.

“It's easy to forget that what we are facing next year is the biggest change of regulations in the sport’s history,” Mekies said at the Ford Racing season launch in Detroit. “There are a lot of people here that have been around for many years, and there is nothing we can remember anywhere close to going through a season where you have both the chassis regulations and the PU regulations that have been completely turned upside down.

“So you take the 10 giants currently in Formula 1 and you throw them into a completely different game for next year, and you cannot expect, magically, the pecking order to come out in the same positions.

“Now, because that was not enough, it's also the moment where we decided to do our own power unit starting from scratch. Zero. We didn't buy an existing power unit company. We started at the back of Oracle Red Bull Racing, in a field in Milton Keynes.

“There was a field. We built a factory there. Once you have the walls, you say, ‘What do I need next?’ ‘Oh yeah, we need dynos.’ OK, so we bring the dynos in, hire 600 people, and start from scratch to think about this power unit.

“So you start to realize the size of the challenge. You start to realize how crazy of a decision it is, and how much of the initial struggle it's going to be. Because if, in that context, you think that you turn up at race one and you are at the same level as people who have been doing it for 90 years, it will be very naive.”

Despite the words of caution, Mekies says there have been some clear advantages to working with Ford so far that he believes will set the partnership up for future success.

“We feel we have put together the best group of people," he said. "We feel we have put together the best partners – with Ford, with Exxon, with Oracle, with all of our partners.

“We are discovering every day more ways to work together with Ford. It started in a very surprising way for us. We didn't know what to expect. It started with discovering that these guys had unique advanced manufacturing capabilities to produce key parts of the power unit at a level of quality we were not able to reach, and in a time window that we were not able to dream of.

“Our business is a time to market business – we call it time to race. The idea you have is only worth how fast you are able to bring it to the track. And with their capabilities in producing the key elements of the PU, we are able to develop at a much faster rate because we knew we could send [designs] into parts.

“And that was only the beginning. We truly feel that it's a people business. We truly are convinced it's a people business. You get the best people, you will get to the right place. That's how the project is set up.

“Now, if you look for the best talent out there, at some stage we realized that before going into the market, we were ringing Mark [Rushbrook] and Jim [Farley] and saying, ‘Well, actually we are looking for, let's say, a calibration engineer or a drivability engineer,’ [and they said] ‘We are going to send you our best calibration [engineers] in the world.’

“These guys have 200,000 people. And fast forward two or three years, and we have a bunch of Ford engineers that have been [seconded] to Oracle Red Bull Racing, to work in Milton Keynes, in the factory, and developing the PU at 360 [degrees].

“So, that's where we are now. Ask us the question again in six months, and we will find another 10 ways to work together. We challenge each other, we push each other, we help each other. That's the way we set up with our partners.

“We want the best in the world in each field. And we don't want it to be comfortable. We want it to be as on the edge as you need to be in Formula 1 if you want to have any chance to compete close to the win.”