A brand new partnership with Pink Bull signifies that there can be a Ford F1 engine on the grid in 2026.
At the moment, Pink Bull held the launch occasion for its new RB19 racecar, the automobile that Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez will drive throughout the 2023 season. Nonetheless, eagle-eyed analysts can have seen that the present automotive appeared suspiciously just like final season’s title-winning machine. As per ordinary within the fashionable period of F1 launches, it appears as if Pink Bull will wait till testing to disclose its true challenger. As an alternative, the largest information to come back from the occasion was that Pink Bull can be teaming up with Ford within the coming years forward of a brand new F1 engine programme in 2026.
So, no, earlier than you get excited, there received’t be a brand new Ford F1 crew fielding two further automobiles. That is merely an engine provide deal. Actually, when you look extra carefully on the particulars, it’s barely even that…
Pink Bull’s Seek for a New Associate
To grasp why this deal has come about, let’s flip the clock again barely. See, it’s no secret that Pink Bull has been in search of a brand new engine accomplice following the withdrawal of Honda’s funding a few years in the past. For some time, it appeared as if Porsche may be the reply. No less than, it did till the German marque introduced that it wished to have extra management over the crew than Pink Bull’s decision-makers would permit.
Since then, there’s been loads of query marks. A brand new in-house Pink Bull Powertrains division has been arrange, so would the Milton-Keynes-based crew merely go it alone? Properly, because it seems, no.
Is it actually a Ford F1 Engine?
F1’s pledge to improve to “100% sustainable fuels” and elevated powertrain electrification caught the attention of Ford someday final 12 months. And, not wanting to construct its personal crew, a partnership with an present entrant was at all times going to be essentially the most cost-effective means of securing a Ford F1 presence.
What’s extra, Ford isn’t even going to should do the entire heavy lifting in relation to growing this new 2026 engine. Pink Bull Powertrains remains to be going to be the driving pressure behind that challenge, although Ford “will present experience in areas together with battery cell and electrical motor know-how in addition to energy unit management software program and analytics” and “combustion engine improvement”. In return, the RBP engines can be branded as Fords by the point they attain the Pink Bull and AlphaTauri automobiles of 2026.
Following the announcement of the deal, Pink Bull crew principal Christian Horner had this to say:
“To welcome the Ford model again into System One, to have the Pink Bull Ford powertrain goes to be very thrilling.
“There was a pure synergy between the 2 corporations, it was a simple deal. 2026 looks like a great distance away however in [the] engine world it’s tomorrow. We’ve got recruited some unbelievable expertise and have some nice folks within the crew.
“We’re actually enthusiastic about what we will obtain.”
