The mood music surrounding Red Bull-Ford’s F1 2026 engine was not great ahead of the new season. Hence the calls last year for Max Verstappen to jump ship to Mercedes.
Yet after everyone in the paddock had the hots for the RBPT power unit in Bahrain testing, Verstappen’s decision to put his faith in Red Bull has been justified.
Red Bull’s start to F1 2026 has justified Max Verstappen’s decision to stay
A version of this article originally appeared in PlanetF1.com’s conclusions from Bahrain testing
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Many were convinced that Red Bull would find itself in the Aston Martin position at this stage of 2026.
A widespread suspicion that Red Bull was behind with the development of its power unit was at the heart of calls for Max Verstappen to make the move to Mercedes in the middle of 2025.
Get out while you still can, Max. You’ll only end up regretting it if you don’t.
That was the tone of the debate in the weeks before the summer break last year.
Perhaps it was more telling than anyone realised at the time, then, when Verstappen confirmed that he would remain with Red Bull.
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Naturally, he would have had access to Red Bull’s projections for 2026 at the time of his decision.
Toto Wolff, meanwhile, would not have been doing his job if he had not given Max an indication of what Mercedes had planned too.
And yet still Verstappen chose home. He chose Red Bull.
Turns out that the departure of Christian Horner was not the only factor that convinced him to stay.
The difficulties experienced by its old friends at Honda have only further hit home what Red Bull Powertrains has achieved with its first real attempt at an F1 engine.
He might not be welcome in Milton Keynes these days, but much of the credit for RBPT-Ford’s assured start should go to Horner, who recruited smartly and effectively after the team’s in-house engine division was founded in 2021.
That RBPT hired a large number of staff from Mercedes High Performance Powertrains – including technical director Ben Hodgkinson and engineering director Phil Prew – almost certainly explained why it was the only other manufacturer to have dallied with the famous loophole in the new rules.
If this is the kind of experience and expertise Red Bull Powertrains bought itself, how could it possibly have crashed and burned in 2026?
The greatest compliment that can be paid to Red Bull is that it should begin the new season in almost exactly the same place – very close but not quite at the front – it started last year.
There has been no step back. No dramas. No extended period of learning.
And as we know by now, the team only ever needs to get Verstappen close.
Do that and Max will take care of the rest.
What Red Bull’s rivals said about the RBPT-Ford engine in Bahrain F1 2026 testing
Toto Wolff, Mercedes
“I was hoping that they would be worse than they are. They’ve done a very good job.
“The car, the power unit are the benchmark at the moment, I would say.
“And obviously if you have Max in the car, that combination is strong.
“Look at their energy deployment today [the opening day of the first Bahrain test].
“They are able to deploy far more energy on the straights than everybody else. We are speaking a second a lap over consecutive laps.
“On a single lap, we have seen it before. But now we have seen it on 10 consecutive laps with the same straight-line deployment.
“I would say that as of today, on the first official day of testing, which is always with the caveat of that, they’ve done a day to set the benchmark.”
Carlos Sainz, Williams
“It’s still extremely early days.
“But, if I would have to judge by the GPS data of yesterday, right now it is true that whatever Red Bull Powertrains/Ford were doing yesterday [the first day in Bahrain] was a clear step ahead of anyone else.
“A clear step, not only a small step, but a clear step.
“It is mighty impressive if they manage to turn up to race one of a completely new set of regulations, with a completely new engine, new people, and turn up to be the most fastest and reliable engine.
“You have to take your hat off to them and say what they’ve come up with, what they were showing yesterday, was very, very impressive.”
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