Red Bull chief says first F1 test with Ford will be “monumental moment”

Ignore for a moment the WEC (World Endurance Championship) hypercar program Ford announced earlier this week. In addition to these planned efforts, Ford currently competes in nearly every major racing championship around the world without operating a single factory team. Roger Penske is managed the Nascar program, Multimatic Randless GT3, and M Sport Controls The Rally program. At the beginning of this week, the Ford Performance Globalmer Crash Bulk Director, who spoke with cars and drivers at the Motorsports Ford launch party, participated in the logic behind Ford and Red Bull Racing and the logic behind Ford \ Formula 1. I explained.

\”Do we want to own a team? No, we did that once, and it didn\’t work so well,\” said Rushbrook. “It’s not something we’re good at. We saw what was being developed in terms of technical regulations and it started to make more sense to us in terms of the growth of electrification with hybrids.” At that time, Jim [Ford CEO Jim Farley], Bill [executive chairman Bill Ford] and I started to informally discuss the question: ‘Does it make sense for us to come back to F1?’”

It was only after the collapse of the 2022 partnership between Red Bull and Porsche that Ford began to consider a return to F1. Things then began to change rapidly. Once it became clear that a deal between Red Bull and Porsche was not going to happen, Rushbrook contacted Pat Symonds, the former technical director of Formula 1, and asked him for Christian Horner’s email address. \”That next week I was on a plane to Milton Keynes.\”

Despite being scheduled for a 30-minute meeting on that initial trip to Milton Keynes, Rushbrook said the two men spoke for more than two hours. \”To me, it was a match. “It wasn’t exact, but it was pretty close,” he said.

Christian Horner, CEO of Red Bull Racing and principal of the Red Bull Formula 1 team, expressed similar enthusiasm for the Ford partnership. “Ford has a very long history in the sporting world,” Horner told Car and Driver at the same launch party. “They’ve won a lot of championships, they’ve had great success in Formula 1, and, you know, they’re a brand that’s linked to America and motorsport. »

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The second conversation took place in Austin, two weeks after Rushbrook’s visit to Milton Keynes, ahead of the United States Grand Prix. A month later, the Red Bull team met Farie, Ford Rashburg and Ford in Dilborn, Michigan.

Currently, Ford and Red Bull Power Plants are at the center of development, working at the start of the first transmission in 2026 in 2026. “We’re under no illusions that there are any great heights to conquer,” Horner said.

“We’ll have 48 weeks of intensive development and durability testing to get the engine up to the most competitive level possible and ready for the 2026 race,” Horner added. “We don’t know what our competitors are doing, but this time next year, the Red Bull Ford powertrain cars will be in the pit lane for the first time in Barcelona and that will be a monumental moment.”

“Coming back to Formula One next year, seeing the blue oval on the side of our cars, it will be very exciting,” Horner said. “It will be great for Ford, it will be great for Red Bull.”