Christian Horner makes his feelings known about Red Bull's pursuit to build its own power unit
Red Bull boss Christian Horner has made his feelings known about the team attempting to build its own power unit at 'Red Bull Powertrain' in Milton Keynes. The 2026 F1 season would be the first time that the Austrian squad would not be sourcing its power unit and be a customer team.
Instead, the team has made the call that it would develop its own power unit and compete with the might of Mercedes, Ferrari, Audi and Honda. The team essentially made this call in 2021 when its Japanese power unit partner decided that it was going to leave F1.
With 2022 being the beginning of the engine freeze, Red Bull could afford to just stick with Honda until the end of the current regulations in 2025. Beyond that, however, the team decided that it was going to go independent and become the second team after Ferrari to have the entire setup under one roof.
While the Italian team does everything in Maranello, Mercedes has Brackley, where the chassis department is located, and Brixworth, where the power unit facility is set up. Audi would have a similar structure as well, with one unit in Switzerland and the other in Germany. Red Bull's boss, however, seems confident of the road ahead. He told media, including RacingNews365:
"26 is a reset for everyone. Of course, for us, bringing in our own power units, there's huge risks associated with that. But there's also upsides between the integration, between the two worlds. We're the only team, other than Ferrari, to have everything on one campus under one roof. And we're already seeing the synergy between engine engineers and designers and chassis designers."
Red Bull not underestimating the challenge of going up against Mercedes and Ferrari
Horner did admit however that he was not underestimating the challenge that would come from both Mercedes and Ferrari who have a legacy of building F1 power units compared to his outfit that was built up from scratch just four years back. Talking about how he's not discounting what could be a tough road ahead, Horner said (via Racingnews365):
"Now, of course, you should not underestimate the challenge of taking a start-up company with a clean sheet of paper, literally four years ago, to take on Mercedes and Ferrari and the other manufacturers involved."
He added:
"But we believe we've assembled a great group of people. We've got fantastic facilities and that [taking on Mercedes and Ferrari] obviously has to be the target. 2026 will come around before we know it, but we believe we're well positioned."
One of the major reasons behind Red Bull taking the step of going at it independently has to do with the fact that the team has felt limited on that front by its power unit suppliers in the past. Going independent means that the team would have no excuses and no reliance on anyone else to achieve the best possible result.