Max Verstappen has hailed Red Bull\u2019s start with their new power unit at pre-season testing as \u201cvery positive\u201d, the Dutchman admitting that the performance has been \u201camazing to see\u201d from a new manufacturer.<\/p>\n
With 2026 marking the maiden season in which Red Bull Powertrains \u2013 in partnership with Ford \u2013 will supply engines to both Red Bull<\/a> and Racing Bulls<\/a>, the debut power unit has been given its first extended mileage during the Barcelona Shakedown and now at official pre-season testing in Bahrain.<\/p>\n The opening day of the first test at the Bahrain International Circuit looked like a strong one for Red Bull, with Verstappen<\/a> recording the highest lap count of any driver on 136 tours.<\/p>\n Pushed on how pleasantly surprised he had been by the performance of the new engine so far, the four-time World Champion responded: \u201cIt\u2019s of course amazing to see that, as a new manufacturer, to come in. Also for everyone to see the new car and engine together, it\u2019s like their little baby!<\/p>\n \u201cAnd like I said, it\u2019s still of course a lot to learn, but I think we\u2019re heading in the right direction. Of course there\u2019s still things we want to do better, for sure. I think we\u2019ll never be satisfied but, like I said, at least we\u2019re not breaking down. I think that no-one really expected that from the start, that we would go out of the garage without exploding! That has been very positive.\u201d<\/p>\n Reflecting more generally on how he felt about what he had achieved during Wednesday\u2019s running, Verstappen said: \u201cWe did a lot of laps with not big problems, otherwise you can\u2019t do that lap count.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that\u2019s been our target \u2013 trying to really understand this new formula, trying to understand the engine and the car, making sure that things are reliable, and that\u2019s an ongoing process.\u201d<\/p>\n Verstappen described the mood as \u201cfine\u201d within the Red Bull camp, adding that much focus was going on continuing to learn about the new technical regulations<\/a> introduced for 2026.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re working with new rules, so there\u2019s a lot of attention to detail and a lot of things that we still need to get on top of,\u201d he explained. \u201cIt\u2019s all very complex, and I\u2019m sure that, even in the beginning of the season, there\u2019s still a lot of things that we will figure out just going along. So yeah, it\u2019s good to have the testing here and try to understand everything.\u201d<\/p>\n Quizzed further on whether he feels in a good spot from what has been learned about the car so far, Verstappen answered: \u201cI don\u2019t know what spot I am \u2013 I know that I\u2019m in Bahrain! But I don\u2019t know, I have no idea.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s also impossible to know, because you don\u2019t even know [with] your rivals, are they running full power or not? [You don\u2019t know] whatever is going to happen in Melbourne \u2013 cars are going to change also rocking up in Melbourne, so for me it\u2019s always very difficult to say anything about testing.<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, yesterday we just focused on ourselves, trying to do many laps and try not to break down, and that was positive yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n Looking ahead to Friday in Bahrain \u2013 the final day of the first test before a second three-day test follows next week from February 18-20 \u2013 Verstappen set out the plan for what he hopes to achieve as he prepares to split driving duties with team mate Isack Hadjar<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cJust driving a bit more,\u201d the 28-year-old said. \u201cIt\u2019s half a day for me tomorrow. Try to just understand the car and engine a bit more for myself, not only from the engineer side of things.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen has hailed Red Bull\u2019s start with their new power unit at pre-season testing as \u201cvery positive\u201d,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-480254","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-motor","11":"tag-motor-sports","12":"tag-motosport","13":"tag-motosports","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480254","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=480254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}