From the start of the 2026 F1 season, Red Bull will be embarking on a new journey. They will start making engines of their own, by collaborating with American company Ford, in a partnership deal that is worth $30,000,000. Consequently, they have the choice to get a customer team of their own, but McLaren has been ruled out as an option for the Milton-Keynes-based deal.
Red Bull is the most dominant team in F1 at the moment. Their aerodynamic and powertrain department in particular look extremely strong. Because of their domination, most people expect them to have one eye on developing their 2026 engine, because F1 will go through major changes that year.
In fact, Red Bull confirmed that they have started working on the new power units. Christian Horner, however, admitted that they weren’t happy with the new regulations. Since they are the only team who have started working on this, they took it up with the FIA and demanded changes.
Talking about having a potential customer team in the future, it seems as though AlphaTauri will be their only option for now. The Faenza-based outfit is their sister team, and will likely use the Red Bull-Ford engines once they come into the market.
Red Bull on why McLaren won’t be their customer team
Currently, in F1, McLaren uses Mercedes engines, and their partnership has brought little to moderate success to the team. As a result, they could be looking at having a different engine supplier starting in 2026. However, Red Bull won’t be the one supplying power units to them.
“We don’t want to exaggerate it in the first year,” Horner said in an interview with Motorsport Total. By this, Horner suggests that they don’t want to take a gamble on supplying engines for other teams, before making sure that they have their own goals and plans set in motion.
For teams, having a customer team is extremely crucial because they can gather a lot of data from their performance. Additionally, of course it provides the team with an extra source of income. Regardless, Red Bull does not want the added burden of being a supplier on their very first year of being a power-unit manufacturer themselves.
Christian Horner on F1’s “Frankenstein” engines
Taking reference from the famous novel “Frankenstein”, Horner used the character’s name to describe the state of the new engines of F1. These engines are set to have a 50/50 split between fuel and electric power. This means that the engines are actually very different from what the teams are used to at the moment.
Horner and Red Bull, being the first to find out about this, took the issue up with the FIA. They realized that it would end up being a failed approach, and called for immediate changes. Horner used the Frankenstein reference, because, like the fictitious monster, the engine would end up affecting the car’s performance, instead of lifting it.
Some other team bosses, however, took a dig at Horner. For example, his long time rival Toto Wolff felt that Horner is simply afraid of the changes. To this, Horner stated that Wolff has no idea about what he is claiming, because he isn’t close to the team’s engine business.
