2026 Pecking order predictions

[basti313]

No, my 2023 may be too late, but the numbers you digged up from Racer are just not making sense in this regards.
First of all it is not a number for early 2021 and includes all transferred Honda personal which was mainly there for the E machine. Furthermore in 2021 RBPT was mainly working on getting the 2022 ICE ready on the E10 fuel, as they got the new test facilities, that Honda did not buy because of their exit...add this to the list for Honda above.
The big hiring (220 from Merc) happened in 2022, making them still only half of the employees at HPP.
Whatever they fired up in mid 22 was legacy tech and/or not developed by the main team they hired from Merc. I would bet that was not more than a modified Honda without MGU-H.

But going more into the pecking order, this discussion may fit more to the engine thread:
I think the ICE will be the defining factor. I wonder if anyone (private, not the teams) simulated the 2026 car on a sim and did report on this. From the numbers I would expect that at least the race will be super energy limited with heavy lift and coast like in Indy.
So any percent of ICE efficiency goes directly into the pecking order.

You can get a pretty good idea of what they've been doing by looking at the employee numbers for RBPT 2026. The company was incorporated in May of 2022. Numbers are average monthly employees across the year.

2022 - 166 total. 112 in R&D. 39 in production. Rest in admin.
2023 - 365 total. 229 in R&D. 119 in production.
2024 - 565 total. 377 in R&D. 133 in Production.

So the project started in 2022 and has been ramping ever since. Judging by the renumeration numbers, which have increased more modestly than overall employee count, the more senior figures will have been in place from the start. The increase in production capacity in 2023 indicates that they probably started ramping production and dyno runs during that year. Whatever they ran in 2022 was likely an early prototype. They obviously did not have access to Honda IP, nor Honda engineers, so I doubt it was a "modified Honda". The regulations weren't really formulated until late summer 2022, and have been modified quite a bit since then, so I doubt many teams were "all in" before then, especially considering that during 2021 and early 2022 focus would have been on making sure they had a good engine for the freeze.

It's hard to know how that compares to other teams (like Merc). Employee numbers at HPP are much higher over the same time frame, but that is combined for the production and running of the current PUs (for 4 teams) as well as the development of the new engines. One thing that can be said is they were definitely earlier than McHonda, who announced their return less than two years before the start of the 2015 season. For me the bigger question is whether they have assembled the right group of people more than time really.

I think that Merc even upgradet the current engine (reliability) and is gaining experience currently on it.

Why do you rate Ferrari so low? I see no reason to judge them higher or lower than Merc on the engine side.

[FrukostScones]

9.Cadillac
10. Audi

You have Audi behind Cadillac? Why?

I think they are not able to be much better than Sauber with their own PU.
Somewhere it said Michael Schmidt (of AMuS) the PU is bette than expected and running since 2023 on the benches, but I really doubt that they can pull off something great. Too much German micro management and Befindlichkeiten. Also because I don't like Audi Sport as they used to be pretty unethical in DTM and generally for me not very likable. I have nothin against Audi cars (when they looke fine), but Audi in F1 comes min 20 years too late.
Here is and article AMuS does they much but between the lines for me it sounds negative, we will see.
https://www-auto--motor--und--sport-de. ... _hist=true
Cadillac will have very good Ferrari PU and that will be "half the rent" in 2026 I think.