Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies believes the upcoming F1 2026 season will represent a “battle between giants” with new teams and new power unit manufacturers arriving.
Cadillac will be arriving on the grid in 2026, while Audi has been on track in Barcelona for the first time after it completed its full takeover of Sauber, with all the key players having been working on development on all-new machinery for the year ahead.
Red Bull: ‘Level of competition is just insane’ as F1 2026 approaches
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Red Bull finished third in the Constructors’ Championship and Max Verstappen took second in the Drivers’ standings in 2025, with the front of the field often congested through the season.
It is a reset in 2026, however, with all-new chassis and power unit regulations as the teams are hard at work on finalising their new creations ahead of pre-season testing.
Red Bull and sister team Racing Bulls will be the first to unveil their new colours at a launch in Detroit with new technical partner Ford on January 15 as Red Bull sets about making its own power units for the first time.
Mekies admitted the “crazy decision” to go this way is a result of the team’s cavalier attitude and looking to make the most of its talent, having established its Powertrains division several years ago.
With new teams blending with the previous talent on the grid, along with every constructor looking to reach the top of the new pecking order and an equalisation in resources through the sport’s budget cap, Mekies is under no illusions about what a slugfest the next rule set could bring about.
“You’re right in saying that it’s a battle between giants, because that’s what it is and sometimes we forget about it,” Mekies told Red Bull’s in-house Talking Bulls podcast.
“It’s a battle between giants. Seven, eight, nine car manufacturers next year, there is no small teams anymore. It’s just insane. The level of competition is just insane.
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“But fundamentally, we are a people business and you get the best people, and you try to put them in the best condition to work.
“We have incredible leaders. We have Pierre [Waché] on the chassis side, we have Ben [Hodgkinson] on the power unit side. They have built incredible teams underneath them in their respective structures.
“We have a fantastic set of support functions around them to make this team as much as a winning machine as possible.
“Of course, we absolutely do not underestimate the scale of the challenge. That’s why we call it the most crazy decision one can take, to do your own power unit. Not by buying another manufacturer, but just by doing it on the field here, next door in the Milton Keynes campus.
“So we completely appreciate this kind of challenge of going against people who have been doing it for up to 90 years, so it’s going to take a bit of time, but it’s the Red Bull way.
“It’s getting the best people doing it with the Red Bull energy, and doing it at the absolute limit, at the absolute maximum risk taking, and it will take us the time it will take us.
“But there is an unbelievable fighting spirit, racing spirit, pure spirit around here, and that’s down to our people and to what Red Bull symbolise.”
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