Red Bull Ford Powertrains will supply its two teams – Red Bull and AlphaTauri – from the 2026 season, but this could expand in the future, team principal Christian Horner told RacingNews365.com.
Confirmed:
- The plan is to supply two teams – Red Bull and AlphaTauri – with a view to expanding this in future
- McLaren and Red Bull have discussed an engine supply arrangement
- Red Bull’s workforce is set to grow to “between 450 and 475” for 2026, according to Horner
- Horner also confirms AlphaTauri is not for sale, with Red Bull having rejected a US$800 million buyout offer
Context: Between 2016 and 2018, the Renault engines supplied to Red Bull were rebadged as Tag Heuer due to a sponsorship agreement. From 2026, the new engines will be known as Red Bull Ford Powertrains; however, if the engines are eventually supplied to customer teams, the badging of the engines is unknown. Horner revealed that the matter will be “decided between ourselves”, but reiterated that the relationship with Ford will “cover [our] two teams”.
Comment: Horner told RacingNews365.com: “I think initially [we will supply] just two [teams] because, as a startup, as a brand new engine manufacturer, I think it would be overstretching ourselves if we went beyond that. And I think that we just want to focus on servicing the two Red Bull teams first. We've had a lot of interest from other teams – at least two teams have shown interest. But we're not ready for that yet.
“We have a capacity to take on extra teams should we want to in future years, but probably for the first couple of years, we want to focus on just the Red Bull-owned teams as we establish the business, the trackside operations, all the things of supplying and delivering engines in a competitive environment.”
Coming next: The Red Bull Formula One team will be looking to continue their dominant form at this weekend’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix from 19th to 21st May.