Red Bull: “It would be naive to think that we will be better than those who have been doing this for 90 years”

Red Bull Formula 1 team boss Laurent Mekies said it would be naive to expect his team to immediately adapt to the new 2026 power unit rules and admitted that the team will have to go through “very difficult months”.

Red Bull will introduce the first of its own engines to comply with the new rules, developed at its Milton Keynes factory with support from Ford. The decision to create its own engine program was taken after Honda announced its withdrawal from F1, and negotiations with Porsche did not yield results. This forced the team to urgently seek experts and build the program from scratch.

A new challenge for Red Bull meant facing experienced rivals such as Mercedes, Ferrari and Honda (which eventually returned to join forces with Aston Martin). Audi will also join F1 as a new power unit manufacturer in the 2026 season.

“It would be naive to think that we will get to the top right away. We know that there are very, very difficult months ahead of us. There are many sleepless nights and headaches, but being involved in such challenges is part of the privilege.”

“We’ve said it many times: the decision to build our own engine together with Ford was one of the bravest decisions that could have been made. Perhaps it was a decision that only Red Bull could have made.”

“We started from scratch: now we have a building, dynamometers, a team of 600 people and we will try to fight against those who have been doing this for 90 years. We love this challenge, we love this idea. This is very Red Bull and we are proud to do this with Ford.”