Red Bull have accused F1 rivals Mercedes of pedalling the hype surrounding their supposed power unit advantage.<\/p>\n
F1 <\/a>is about to enter one of the most eagerly-anticipated seasons in years, with the introduction of much-changed cars and engines under a regulation cycle that could reset the competitive order.<\/p>\n The winter has been dominated by chatter and speculation about which team has nailed the new rules set, with Mercedes <\/a>being tipped as early favourites by many inside the F1 paddock.<\/p>\n Mercedes are rumoured to have an engine innovation that could hand them a significant advantage over rival power unit manufacturers, however, Red Bull<\/a> are skeptical about where the buzz came from.<\/p>\n \u201cI think a lot of that talk originated from Mercedes themselves. My gran used to say, \u2018An empty can rattles the loudest\u2019. I think my real opinion, I probably can\u2019t say,\u201d Red Bull Powertrains director Ben Hodgkinson told The Express.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s quite a lot of noise in the press about the fact that it\u2019s believed that Mercedes is going to be the benchmark \u2013 a lot of them started by themselves, probably because the driver market is really tough, and they wanted to try to attract people in a car that was currently not performing.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, you have to sort of layer it on the political positioning that everyone has to make.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then, of course, if you say the rumour enough, it starts being believed as a fact and then people start looking for reasons for it. That\u2019s a bit of a theory as to how it all happened.\u201d<\/p>\n Verstappen unfazed about rumours<\/p>\n Max Verstappen<\/a>, who is looking to reclaim the world championship this year after narrowly missing out on winning a fifth successive drivers\u2019 title last year to McLaren\u2019s Lando Norris<\/a>, has been quick to downplay rumours regarding the new-for-2026 power units.<\/p>\n For the first time since joining the F1 grid in 2005, Red Bull are manufacturing their own engine in collaboration with US car giant Ford.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s impossible to know,\u201d Verstappen told Bloomberg.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone is just trying everything they can and from our side, especially from my side, I have to focus on the driving.<\/p>\n \u201cI’m not there to be the engine technician will explain everything in detail to you.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the end of the day, it’s also something between the FIA and the engine manufacturers to sort out.<\/p>\n \u201cI drive the car, and I trust that from our side, we always try to do our very best to get the most performance out of the engine.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Red Bull have accused F1 rivals Mercedes of pedalling the hype surrounding their supposed power unit advantage. F1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,817,825,806,805,803,804,918,85],"class_list":["post-426519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-red-bull","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426519","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=426519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}