Red Bull has made a novel suggestion as to how Formula 1 should govern its complex engine rules, pushing for freedom to ignite a development war.
Red Bull will run its own power unit in 2026 in collaboration with Ford, debuting as F1 enters a radical overhaul of its power unit regulations.
Featuring a near 50:50 split between the internal combustion engine and electrical power, frequent failures are anticipated at the sport’s closed test in Barcelona.
The FIA is introducing the Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities system (ADUO) to regulate the new power units, with a provision to prevent a manufacturer gaining an advantage.
Power units will now be evaluated after the sixth, 12th and 18th race, with those down by 2% on the leading engine permitted another upgrade, while the leading engine will be docked one.
But despite the option to claw back any deficit with its engine, Red Bull Ford Powertrains Technical Director Ben Hodgkinson is pushing for holmogation to be removed entirely.
“I would personally love just to get rid of homologation, have a gloves-off fight, that’s what I’d really like – but we are where we are, we have a cost cap and we have dyno hours limits, so I think there’s enough limits in place without this,” Hodgkinson said at its 2026 car livery launch.
Can ADUO assist Red Bull?
Hodgkinson believes the development time needed for power units will cause issues for those needing upgrades, bit will still reward manufacturers that initially nail the new rules.
“Does it sufficiently reward the people that get it right? I think so,” he said.
“Because the bit that I don’t think is fully understood actually amongst the rule makers is, like, the gestation time of an idea in power units is much longer than it is in chassis.
“So if I need to make a change firstly I’ve not just got two cars to update, I’ve got a whole fleet of engines in the pool, so I could have 12 power units that I need to update, and so that takes time.
“But also, because we’re homologated you can’t really take a flyer on something that isn’t well proven, because you could be signing up to a world of pain. So we’ve got a minimum number of durability that we’d want to achieve on our new part and our new idea.
“And our parts normally are very, very high-precision metal bits that just take time to manufacture, so we can have 12-week manufacturing time on some bits. And then it will take similar length of time to prove it all out, and then a similar length of time to get it all furnished in the race pool.”
“I think that if a team has an advantage on the power unit in race one it’s going to take some time before anyone else can catch up,” he added. “A way to peg them back is kind of what’s necessary, which the ADUO does offer in some respects, but I think after six races it’s assessed so technically the seventh you can introduce the update.
“I think that it’s quite challenging to come up with an update in a couple of weeks – if I had 20 kilowatts to bolt on the engine right now, I’d do it.”
READ MORE: Red Bull issues confident rejection of 2026 F1 car illegality fears
Discussion about this post