Red Bull’s Laurent Mekies: “Building our own engine was a bold, crazy decision”. Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies reflects on the audacious decision to develop their own engine.

Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies has described as “crazy” the decision by the Milton Keynes-based team to field its own power unit next year. In 2026, a new technical regulation will come into effect, marking the first significant changes in ten years to both engine rules and aerodynamics.

Red Bull committed to building its own engine for the new era and partnered with Ford to produce it. With the project now in its final stages before its track debut next month, Laurent Mekies stated that it was a major decision.

As reported by RacingNews365, the Frenchman said: “We have said it many times, the decision to create our own power unit, in our case with the support of Ford, is the craziest decision anyone could make.”

“It was a crazy decision, probably one that only Red Bull could make. We started in this field, now we have a building, test benches, 600 people, and we will try to compete with those who have been doing this for 90 years. We love the challenge, we love this idea. It’s very Red Bull, and we are very proud to do it with Ford.”

The Milton Keynes team hopes to continue fighting for the world championship next year, despite the regulation changes and the immense project of fielding their own engine. Laurent Mekies stated that the scale of the change means Red Bull cannot expect to have a reference engine when the cars hit the track at the end of January.

“It would be naive to think we could reach first place immediately. We know that very, very difficult months await us, many sleepless nights, a few headaches, but that is also part of the privilege of being associated with this kind of challenge.”

The success of the Red Bull-Ford partnership will therefore define the team’s trajectory for the remainder of the decade. While the transition from being a customer or partner team to a full works manufacturer is fraught with technical risks, it offers Red Bull the ultimate prize in Formula 1: total control over the integration between chassis and engine. Whether this “crazy” idea pays off will be the biggest story of the 2026 season.