If you walked into the Red Bull Racing garage at the end of 2023, you’d have seen a team that looked invincible. They were winning everything. Max Verstappen was breaking records every weekend, and the RB19 was arguably the most dominant piece of machinery ever to touch asphalt. Fast forward to today, January 16, 2026, and the landscape is unrecognizable.
The "Old Guard" is gone.
Christian Horner, the man who led the team for two decades, is no longer at the helm. Adrian Newey, the aerodynamic genius whose brain basically designed the modern era of F1 dominance, has moved on to Aston Martin. Even the venerable Helmut Marko, the man who found Max, has exited the stage. Honestly, if you told a fan three years ago that the Red Bull F1 team would enter the 2026 season with Laurent Mekies as Team Principal and a power unit built in-house with Ford, they’d have asked what alternate reality you’d stepped out of.
But here we are.
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Detroit just saw the launch of the RB22. It’s blue—very Ford blue. It’s the start of the most ambitious, and frankly, the riskiest chapter in the history of the Milton Keynes squad.
The Ford Partnership and the DM01 Engine
The biggest misconception people have is that Ford is just a sticker on the engine cover. That’s totally wrong. This isn’t like the old Aston Martin or Infiniti branding deals. Red Bull Ford Powertrains is a massive industrial undertaking. They’ve built a factory from scratch in Milton Keynes just to produce their own engines.
Why? Because they wanted total control.
The new power unit, officially named the DM01—a tribute to the late Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz—is a beast born of necessity. With the 2026 regulations demanding a 50/50 split between internal combustion and electrical power, Red Bull needed a partner who knew batteries. That’s where Ford comes in. They aren't just writing checks; they've embedded engineers to work on battery cell technology and control software.
It's a huge gamble.
Most independent teams fail when they try to build their own engines. Look at the history books. It’s littered with projects that went nowhere. But Red Bull isn't most teams. They’ve poached a massive amount of talent from Mercedes’ HPP division. They have the money. They have the facilities. But do they have the time? Laurent Mekies recently admitted that the team expects some "pain" in the first few months of 2026. Reliability is the big question mark hanging over that DM01 block.
A New Face Next to Max
Max Verstappen is still the anchor. He’s 28 now, a five-time World Champion (nearly six, having lost the 2025 title to Lando Norris by a heart-wrenching two points), and he’s committed to his contract through 2028. But the garage feels different.
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The secondary seat is no longer a rotating door of veteran "support" drivers.
Isack Hadjar has stepped up. The 21-year-old Frenchman is a graduate of the Red Bull Junior Team and spent 2025 showing serious spark at Racing Bulls. Putting a rookie—well, a "sophomore" in F1 terms—into the most pressured seat in the sport is a classic Red Bull move. It’s high-risk, high-reward. Yuki Tsunoda, despite his years of service, has transitioned into a Test and Reserve role.
It’s a clear signal that the Red Bull F1 team is prioritizing the long-term future over immediate, safe points-scoring.
Hadjar is fast. Like, scary fast. But can he handle being Max’s teammate? That’s the graveyard where many careers go to die. Max is ruthless. His "mental bandwidth," as Powertrains Director Ben Hodgkinson calls it, is his biggest advantage in these 2026 cars. The new rules mean drivers have to manage energy deployment and active aerodynamics (X-mode for straights, Z-mode for corners) constantly. It’s basically a video game at 200 mph.
The "Newey-Less" Reality
Let’s be real: you don't just replace Adrian Newey. You don't "fill the gap" left by the guy who understands airflow better than anyone on the planet.
Pierre Waché is the man in the hot seat now. He’s been the Technical Director for a while, but this is the first car built entirely without Newey’s oversight. The RB22 looks different. The sidepods are narrower, the floor is simplified to meet the new "anti-ground-effect" rules, and the active aero wings are integrated in a way we haven't seen before.
Critics say Red Bull will fall back. They point to the mid-2025 slump where the team struggled with balance as proof that the brain trust is thinning. But people forget that Red Bull still has one of the best simulation departments in the world. They have the wind tunnel. They have a culture of winning that doesn't just evaporate because a few big names left.
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What to Watch for in the 2026 Season
If you're following the Red Bull F1 team this year, don't expect a 2023-style runaway. That’s not happening. Mercedes looks strong. Ferrari has mastered the new fuel requirements. Red Bull is starting from a place of "measured optimism."
- Reliability vs. Performance: The DM01 engine will likely be fast, but will it finish races? Keep an eye on the heat management during the opening rounds in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
- The Hadjar Factor: If Isack can stay within three-tenths of Max in qualifying, Red Bull has a star. If the gap is half a second, the pressure will mount instantly.
- The Active Aero Learning Curve: Watch how Max uses the "override" mode. The 2026 rules replace traditional DRS with a manual battery boost. Whoever masters the timing of that deployment wins the championship.
Honestly, the "villain arc" of Red Bull might be over. They are the underdogs again, in a weird way. They are a "privateer" engine builder taking on the giants of Ferrari, Mercedes, and Audi.
Actionable Steps for the 2026 Season
If you want to keep up with the team’s progress, stop looking at the old 2023/2024 stats. They don't matter anymore.
- Monitor the Barcelona Testing Data: Specifically, look for long-run averages. Red Bull has already warned they might spend more time in the garage than on the track during the first test. Don't panic if they're at the bottom of the lap count; they’re mapping a brand-new power unit.
- Follow Isack Hadjar’s telemetry: His ability to manage the hybrid deployment is what got him the seat. If he’s matching Max’s energy recovery numbers, he’s the real deal.
- Check the "Engine Freeze" rumors: There is already talk of a performance balance if one manufacturer misses the mark significantly with the 2026 regs. If Red Bull struggles early, their political moves in the FIA meetings will be just as important as their moves on track.
The era of Horner and Newey is the history book. The era of Red Bull Ford is the live broadcast. It’s going to be messy, it’s going to be loud, and it’s almost certainly going to be the most scrutinized project in F1 history.