Red Bull Powertrains’ 2026 engine development ‘hitting its targets’

Red Bull is firing on all cylinders with its 2026 F1 power unit engine project, according to team boss Christian Horner, and hitting all the milestones that have been set.

The Milton Keynes-based outfit’s engine department, Red Bull Powertrains, is a hive of activity with dyno machines churning away, putting the next-generation turbo-hybrid design through its paces.

In the past months, rumors have swirled about Red Bull's engine progress, but Horner assures that the project is on track and following its course.

“With the engine, we're on an aggressive curve being a brand new power unit manufacturer. But the team is really rising to that challenge,” Horner told Motorsport.com.

“Our facilities are complete, both from a test and development point of view with dynos and rig rooms, etc, and manufacturing capability.

“But two years in the engine world is a very small period of time. We're on a steep learning curve, but we're on that curve and where we would expect to be on that curve at this point in time.”

• Read also: Newey foresees ‘strange’ new challenges with 2026 engines

Horner acknowledged the secrecy surrounding its competitors’ own developments, but highlighted Red Bull Powertrains’ own progress and the intense push underway to meet their ambitious goals.

“We are hitting the targets that we're setting ourselves,” he said. “Now, how those targets stack up to our competitors is always difficult to know.

“But the effort that's going in behind the scenes is huge, because it is literally a race against the clock to the start of 2026.”

The negative rumors circulating about Red Bull’s engine progress inevitably prompted questions about Max Verstappen’s commitment to the team.

However, the reigning world champion brushed aside those concerns, emphasizing the early stage of development while also putting his trust in his team’s engineering excellence.

“I mean, if I have to speculate about everything... I might be worried if I'm still alive tomorrow, right?," the Dutchman recently said. "So, I don't really worry about that too much.

"Of course, I am in close contact with Christian about that and the people working there. Everyone's working flat out, so there is no need to panic about that. It's still not 2026.

"We know that it is a very big task, we don't take that lightly. And of course, with so many well-established engine manufacturers, we also don't think it's going to be easy to beat them.

"But we have a lot of good people working on the project and we're very excited about it. So time will tell, of course, where it's going to be."

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