F1 2026 driver line-up: Lewis Hamilton and other drivers already confirmed for 2026<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cI think they [Mercedes] are likely to be doing well,\u201d Hodgkinson told The Inside Track. \u201cIt\u2019s a good company with some good people in it and they\u2019ve got an awful lot of experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think quite a lot of the power unit is similar to the current generation. They were probably able to start testing way before we were. Sure that gives them a very large advantage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s something like over 20,000 components in a power unit and normally when you go from one season to the next, you might design or redesign about 600 of them.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut what we\u2019ve had to do is draw every single one. And so that\u2019s quite a lot of work at the beginning. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo where we are now, I\u2019m fairly confident that we\u2019re probably developing faster than them. I think we started behind them, so it\u2019s just this race into who\u2019s going to be ahead by race one.\u201d<\/p>\n
He believes Red Bull will be amongst the frontrunners.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got to believe that\u2019s possible,\u201d he said. \u201cAiming for anything else is just not what you do. If you\u2019re playing archery, you aim at the middle of the target, it\u2019s what you do.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is, however, by no means bullish confidence but rather a belief based on the team and the facilities that Red Bull has built with its powertrain division.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m definitely not confident,\u201d he explained. \u201cYou show me someone who is confident in this sport and I\u2019ll show you someone who is about to lose. I think confidence is a mistake because you don\u2019t know where you are.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I am confident in is I\u2019ve got the support from Red Bull, the support from Ford, the team that I\u2019ve built and the facility that we\u2019ve got. I\u2019m confident in that. We\u2019ve made the right decisions, it\u2019s just where we are in that race. We\u2019ll have to wait and see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Red Bull chief reveals Max Verstappen\u2019s first impression<\/p>\n
Hodgkinson revealed Red Bull\u2019s star driver Verstappen recently visited the team\u2019s Powertrain division and was given a tour of the facility as well as his first experience of his 2026 engine.<\/p>\n
Verstappen, he says, was impressed with what he saw, and heard.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he was impressed with where we were. We was able to show him just how much hardware is going through our build shots and on our dynos.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was able to see some running engines doing laps, so he got to hear what the \u201826 power unit would sound like. I guess he\u2019ll be hearing that just behind his head for quite a number of hours, so it was the first time he got to hear exactly what it sounded like.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he was impressed. Normally when I show people around, they\u2019re flabbergasted at the amount of detail that we go into. This is an exceptional facility put together by a group of really exceptional people.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the level of detail we go into on every single element, I think is absolutely vital and trying to get where we aspire to get on the grid and on the podium.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut when you share that detail with someone, their minds blow. They can\u2019t quite believe how many elements that we dissect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Verstappen, though, wasn\u2019t the only one impressed<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, he has got a great understanding. I\u2019m sure that\u2019s part of his advantage, to be honest,\u201d the technical director added, \u201cand he was asking lots of really intelligent questions as we went around. He really wanted to know more about certain bits that we\u2019re talking about. It was a real pleasure to tell him more about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was certainly very keen to point out how important it is to have the performance. But I mean, he knew that.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd so, I guess he very quickly realised that he was walking around with like-minded individuals. I mean, we all are aiming to be at the front. That is the only thing that is success and anything else isn\u2019t good enough. So that\u2019s what we\u2019re pushing for.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Read next: Max Verstappen \u2018overtake\u2019 ruled out as Lando Norris form reignites \u2018better car\u2019 debate\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Having committed to Red Bull for 2026, Max Verstappen is said to be \u201cimpressed\u201d with what he\u2019s seen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,1613,44,1882,82,4390],"class_list":["post-293574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-home-page","tag-news","tag-red-bull","tag-sports","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}