2026 Oracle Red Bull Racing F1 Team

[Henk_v]

I am still curiois how people can put RBPT not as the favourite.

They made dozens of very painful hires from mercedes, essentially getting their top developers, they have all the Honda IP ánd built a brand new facility,meaning they got new, top of the line stuff.

The only weak point might be Ford.

[Matt2725]

I am still curiois how people can put RBPT not as the favourite.

They made dozens of very painful hires from mercedes, essentially getting their top developers, they have all the Honda IP ánd built a brand new facility,meaning they got new, top of the line stuff.

The only weak point might be Ford.

They didn't get their top developers though.

They wanted Andy Cowell who chose to do something outside of F1 instead. They wanted Hywel Thomas who took over from Andy Cowell and couldn't get him either.

Third choice lucky with Ben Hodgkinson?

[Badger]

I am still curiois how people can put RBPT not as the favourite.

They made dozens of very painful hires from mercedes, essentially getting their top developers, they have all the Honda IP ánd built a brand new facility,meaning they got new, top of the line stuff.

The only weak point might be Ford.

Not this again. They have no Honda IP.

And why should they be the favourites just because they hired some good people? They didn't take every good PU engineer in the sport, and they are competing against companies who also have state of the art facilities and years of experience and IP to draw from.

[Badger]

I am still curiois how people can put RBPT not as the favourite.

They made dozens of very painful hires from mercedes, essentially getting their top developers, they have all the Honda IP ánd built a brand new facility,meaning they got new, top of the line stuff.

The only weak point might be Ford.

They didn't get their top developers though.

They wanted Andy Cowell who chose to do something outside of F1 instead. They wanted Hywel Thomas who took over from Andy Cowell and couldn't get him either.

Third choice lucky with Ben Hodgkinson?

Let's not be insecure, they got several "top developers" from HPP. The two names you listed were simply the highest profile heads of the company, though Cowell had left Mercedes and F1 before RBPT was even a whisper.

[pantherxxx]

They recruited approximately 170 engineers from Mercedes HPP, as well as dozens from Ferrari, Renault, Honda, and even Cosworth, in addition to new hires. It would be unrealistic to assume that Mercedes’ power unit department was unaffected by the loss of that much experience.

On top of that, there is the massive support that Ford can provide with their state-of-the-art facilities. Based on this, we can safely assume that the Red Bull Ford engine will be very close to Mercedes, or even better. Then it will be the aero and the driver that will decide, not the engine. And Mercedes has been weak in that area for the past four years. Red Bull has a better aero department.

Incidentally, the lap times also show this. Hadjar was immediately the fastest at the start of the test, even though he is much slower than Verstappen. After that, Red Bull deliberately slowed down, as they only improved by a few tenths compared to that lap. Sandbagging.

[Emag]

They recruited approximately 170 engineers from Mercedes HPP, as well as dozens from Ferrari, Renault, Honda, and even Cosworth, in addition to new hires. It would be unrealistic to assume that Mercedes’ power unit department was unaffected by the loss of that much experience.

On top of that, there is the massive support that Ford can provide with their state-of-the-art facilities. Based on this, we can safely assume that the Red Bull Ford engine will be very close to Mercedes, or even better. Then it will be the aero and the driver that will decide, not the engine. And Mercedes has been weak in that area for the past four years. Red Bull has a better aero department.

Incidentally, the lap times also show this. Hadjar was immediately the fastest at the start of the test, even though he is much slower than Verstappen. After that, Red Bull deliberately slowed down, as they only improved by a few tenths compared to that lap. Sandbagging.

I am not disputing this, but there's not enough information for you to make this claim either. You don't know how much slower than Verstappen Hadjar is.

[f1isgood]

They recruited approximately 170 engineers from Mercedes HPP, as well as dozens from Ferrari, Renault, Honda, and even Cosworth, in addition to new hires. It would be unrealistic to assume that Mercedes’ power unit department was unaffected by the loss of that much experience.

On top of that, there is the massive support that Ford can provide with their state-of-the-art facilities. Based on this, we can safely assume that the Red Bull Ford engine will be very close to Mercedes, or even better. Then it will be the aero and the driver that will decide, not the engine. And Mercedes has been weak in that area for the past four years. Red Bull has a better aero department.

Incidentally, the lap times also show this. Hadjar was immediately the fastest at the start of the test, even though he is much slower than Verstappen. After that, Red Bull deliberately slowed down, as they only improved by a few tenths compared to that lap. Sandbagging.

I love your optimism but the biggest advantage all of these manufacturers seem to have is they can use staff and information and resources from other parts of their project - Merc for eg can pull up their Formula-E team, their trucking division etc to make this engine. In that sense they will lack expertise. But if Horner hired the right people and made them work in the right way I think the engine will be good. Not sure about best but as with Red Bull they will remain a thorn to others.

[Wouter]

F1 Drivers Interviews DAY 5 Barcelona Shakedown | F1 2026

It starts with Max, than Lando.

[ME4ME]

I think Horner should be given massive credit for RBPT because it's quite frankly very impressive that he was able to hire ~180 people from HPP. Even Mintzlaff recently complimented him for this achievement.

Ben Hodgekinson said recently something to the extent that their aim was to develop quicker than Mercedes but that they didn't nessasarily expect to start ahead of them. This makes total sense if you ask me. Surely Mercedes started working on the 2026 PU earlier and with much greater resources and readiness than RBPT Ford did.

[AR3-GP]

I think Horner should be given massive credit for RBPT because it's quite frankly very impressive that he was able to hire ~180 people from HPP. Even Mintzlaff recently complimented him for this achievement.

I agree. It was really his vision to make Red Bull self-sufficient after Honda pulled out. Considering how reliable things appeared in Barcelona and the commitment from Red Bull and Ford, it all seems about as normal as a trip to the supermarket. A year ago I was sure this was a terrible idea, but I lacked insight.

Ben Hodgekinson said recently something to the extent that their aim was to develop quicker than Mercedes but that they didn't nessasarily expect to start ahead of them. This makes total sense if you ask me. Surely Mercedes started working on the 2026 PU earlier and with much greater resources and readiness than RBPT Ford did.

Many months ago, Helmut Marko said Red Bull would be within 5kW of Mercedes. Dr. Obbs also revealed in a recent podcast that he has been told that internal targets were reached, and even slightly exceeded. Make of that what you will...but power is not everything. There is also drivability and heat rejection of the PU. Some other competitors may be more advanced in those areas. So we could still see that RBPT is not all the way there in practice.

[Emag]

Do they know what power is Mercedes outputting though? Within 5 kW of Mercedes sounds like an ambiguous goal.

[AR3-GP]

Do they know what power is Mercedes outputting though?

When you hire 150+ employees from Brixworth, old colleagues will tend to talk...

Within 5 kW of Mercedes sounds like an ambiguous goal.

I don't think there's a goal to be behind Mercedes. They've worked for 4 years with internal targets and now it's time to show their work. Someone else could still be in front. At this stage, they may know that it is Mercedes and by roughly how much.

[gearboxtrouble]

I think they'll be close to the top in terms of peak output unless they're playing games for the ADUO boost. The team that built this engine knows what the targets at Mercedes were and they know where they need to be. I also think Exxon is a top tier fuel supplier - along with Shell they've decades of experience and tens of billions in R&D into synth fuel that the others just can't match. Honda cited the advantage of having them as a fuel and lubricants partner in the last formula. Where I thought they would struggle was reliability (the established manufacturers and even Audi have a a lot of experience at the manufacturing and supply chain stuff that really makes a difference here) and on the software side of harvesting optimization. The early signs on reliability are good but we still have to see what the race pace looks like in terms of how much power they can maintain over lap after lap.

[Emag]

Do they know what power is Mercedes outputting though?

When you hire 150+ employees from Brixworth, old colleagues will tend to talk...

Within 5 kW of Mercedes sounds like an ambiguous goal.

I don't think there's a goal to be behind Mercedes. They've worked for 4 years with internal targets and now it's time to show their work. Someone else could still be in front. At this stage, they may know that it is Mercedes and by roughly how much.

I suppose you're right. Leaks would be really hard to manage when you have so many employees. But anyway, it's one thing knowing the number, normally it would be a whole other thing being able to achieve that for yourself. But RedBull is not a normal case, because they got a considerable amount of ex-Merc employees.

I have a feeling that what Horner did might continue to piss Toto off throughout this season ...

[Vettel165]

Look if there was justice in this world, Max will take his fifth title in 2026. Because in 2025 he was just the best driver in the entire season, winning a lot of races in a inferior Red Bull.