Ford CEO Jim Farley insists it will need every ounce of Max Verstappen’s “very special talent” as it faces a “mountain to climb” on its return to F1.<\/p>\n
For the first time since 2004, when it sold Jaguar to Red Bull, Ford is involved in F1, as a technical partner to Red Bull Powertrains, as it builds its first in-house engine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ford is actually the third most successful engine manufacturer of all-time in terms of wins, with 176 through the iconic Cosworth DFV of the late 1960s-1980s.<\/p>\n
Blue Oval engines powered Tyrrell, Lotus, McLaren, and Williams to 10 constructors’ titles between 1968 and 1981, and landed 13 drivers’ crowns between Graham Hill in 1968 and Michael Schumacher in 1994.<\/p>\n
Champion Ford drivers include Hill, Jochen Rindt, Jackie Stewart, James Hunt, Mario Andretti, and Schumacher with the Blue Oval third in terms of drivers’ titles and fourth in terms of constructors’ crowns.<\/p>\n
However, Farley believes that this history will have little impact as Ford navigates F1 in the 2020s.<\/p>\n
“Max is a very special talent, not only behind the wheel, but as a leader in the team, and we’re going to need that this year,” Farley told Sky Sports F1.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I don’t think anyone truly understands what a mountain it takes to climb. Yes, we’ve been in Formula 1 before as the third most winning powertrain company [with the Ford Cosworth DFV], but that doesn’t help us at all.<\/p>\n
“For 2026, this is monumental PU development. We are not like Mercedes or Ferrari in doing this for a long time, but Red Bull, and we are very humbled by this.<\/p>\n
“There is a mountain to climb, and it is going to test our company like almost no other project in our company.<\/p>\n
“I want to make sure everyone understands that we are incredibly humbled and excited, and that’s why we took it on, because it is so hard.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ford CEO Jim Farley insists it will need every ounce of Max Verstappen’s “very special talent” as it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,827,817,830,828,831,829,826,813,816,823,825,824,822,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-420117","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-daniel-ricciardo","11":"tag-f1","12":"tag-f1-calendar","13":"tag-f1-live","14":"tag-f1-results","15":"tag-f1-standings","16":"tag-ferrari","17":"tag-formula-1","18":"tag-formula1","19":"tag-lewis-hamilton","20":"tag-max-verstappen","21":"tag-motorsport","22":"tag-racing","23":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}