Red Bull Racing confirms far-reaching decision on its power unit

GPblog was the first to report last week that Red Bull and Ford are seriously considering not adding performance to the power unit, given it's permitted under ADUO (Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities). That is a special rule whereby, after various measurement points in the F1 season, teams that are more than 2 percent behind the strongest power unit are allowed to implement an upgrade.

This website understood that it was already uncertain whether Max Verstappen’s team was within the two percent. If that were the case, the Austrians would prefer to first get the chassis in order and not opt for a power unit upgrade, which would also be perfectly understandable.

Laurent Mekies now told The Race that GPblog’s reporting was accurate: “As much as theoretically you will have the right to do it the race immediately after the verdict, are we ready to do so? Probably not, because you still need to deal with four engines in the season.

“The regulations force you to pick your moment. So you will have to try to group them and to make them into sizeable enough [steps]. Realistically, I don't think you will see it in the first part of the season, at least for us. But certainly in the second part of season, you will try to shoot before having the '27 window, where you can, anyway, upgrade as well,” said Mekies.

According to Red Bull’s calculations, their own power unit is about three-tenths of a second behind Mercedes’. That’s a smaller margin than many expected, including Mekies. “It has clearly exceeded expectations, very clearly, like we were gearing up for a much further away starting point,” he says.

Mekies is, of course, not satisfied. The team boss acknowledges the car’s problems, particularly with the chassis. “We have our own issues. We need to get these tenths back. We need to fix what we need to fix with the car. This we know how to do it. It's going to happen, not in Miami, but it's going to happen.”