Strategy

Ford's Red Bull Partnership: Seven Races In, the Milestones Are Mounting

Answer

Confirmed

Seven races into the 2026 Formula 1 season, the Red Bull Ford Powertrains partnership has delivered competitive results including a first podium for Ford since 2003, front-row starts for Max Verstappen, and a strong qualifying debut for Isack Hadjar. The collaboration, which supplies both Red Bull Racing and Racing Bulls, is tracking against its early targets as the field heads to Silverstone.

A startup power unit partnership, seven races deep

Seven race weekends into the 2026 season, Ford has already hit a number of early milestones it was targeting as part of its Red Bull Ford Powertrains partnership, providing power units for four drivers across two teams: Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar at Red Bull Racing, and Arvid Lindblad and Liam Lawson at Racing Bulls. ^[1]

Ford returned to Formula One as an engine supplier for the first time since it provided engines for its former customer team Jordan in 2004, now supporting Red Bull Powertrains in supplying power units to Red Bull Racing and Racing Bulls. ^[3] The partnership, announced in February 2023, is structured as a long-term strategic technical collaboration covering the development of the next-generation hybrid power unit from 2026 onward. ^[7]

Grid presence from lap one

The Red Bull Ford DM01 power unit showed its potential in the first pre-season shakedown in Barcelona, and was then competitive for both teams in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, with Hadjar qualifying in third place. ^[1] With a target of qualifying in the top half of the grid on a regular basis, that benchmark has been met not only by Hadjar's attention-grabbing Melbourne performance, but by front-row starts for Verstappen in both Miami and Monaco. ^[1]

Montreal delivers the first podium

The fifth grand prix of the season, in Montreal, was a landmark moment as Verstappen fought his way to third place and the first podium for a Red Bull Ford power unit, which was also the first podium for Ford in F1 since 2003. ^[1] Verstappen's third place in Montreal returned the Ford name to the podium for the first time since Giancarlo Fisichella's victory for Jordan in Brazil in 2003. ^[2]

:::analysis The podium result carries symbolic weight beyond the championship points. Ford re-entered F1 as a partner to a startup power unit programme rather than an established engine maker, a structurally higher-risk position than any of the other returning manufacturers faced. Reaching the podium inside five rounds validates that the foundational architecture is at least race-competitive, even if outright race victories remain a work in progress with Mercedes currently the dominant force.

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The collaboration's engineering architecture

Ford came on board as a strategic partner to Red Bull in early 2023, and the sixth-generation power unit created at Red Bull's facility in Milton Keynes powers Red Bull Racing and sister squad Racing Bulls. ^[4] Areas developed together include combustion engine development, battery cell and electric motor technology, and power unit control software and analytics. ^[7] Ford Racing's global director Mark Rushbrook confirmed that Red Bull and Ford achieved many of their early goals at the start of 2026, with the partnership continuing to work toward the front of the field. ^[6]

:::analysis The structural design of the collaboration, with Ford embedding engineers in Milton Keynes rather than supplying components at arm's length, distinguishes it from conventional OEM partnerships. That proximity accelerates the feedback loop between road-car battery research and race-day energy management, a crossover that both parties identified as a primary motivation when the deal was announced.

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Looking ahead to Silverstone

With the British Grand Prix approaching, the Red Bull Ford package will face one of the calendar's highest-downforce and high-speed hybrid energy-deployment circuits. F1 2026 marks the first year of competitive running for the Red Bull Powertrains project, initiated in 2022 by what was then the Red Bull Racing leadership. ^[4] Red Bull built a bespoke power unit facility on their Milton Keynes campus, recruiting heavily across the industry for the programme. ^[3] Silverstone will be another live test of how the DM01 performs across a demanding high-speed layout, and the results will feed directly into the partnership's ongoing development cycle.