2026 PU agreement: Ferrari accepts Red Bull as new manufacturer to secure a technological advantage

F1 2023: the recognition of the Red Bull Powertrains division as a new engine manufacturer gives the Milton Keynes team a clear advantage in the development of future power units. In fact, the regulation allows an economic incentive for the entry of new manufacturers equal to 25 million dollars and additional hours on the test benches, in order to compensate for the lesser know-how compared to the automotive companies that are already part of Formula One.

The agreement with the International Federation will have various consequences. In the first place it establishes the definitive end of the partnership with Honda. In this sense, the fact that the Japanese company signed the new regulation as a manufacturer was the first sign of the end of the partnership between the Sakura power unit manufacturer and the team headed by Christian Horner.

The Powertrains division will therefore have to capitalize on the next three years of support from Honda HRC, in the ambitious program that will lead Red Bull to be, together with Ferrari, the only team to produce the ‘entire internal single-seater of its factory. Through a superficial analysis, the great opportunity seized by Red Bull could appear as yet another political defeat for Ferrari, especially considering the elusive right of veto never used.

F1: Ferrari “fights” with the FIA to gain some benefits
The historic team from Maranello has always opposed the idea of Red Bull Powertrains being considered as a new engine manufacturer. On the basis of this belief, the Prancing Horse did not subscribe to the 2026 turbo hybrid unit regulation, which had a deadline at the end of November 2022.

It was a firm position from the Ferrari management, despite the fact that Red Bull has informed its competitors that it no longer holds the intellectual property of the Honda engine in use. The position taken by the Maranello team greatly displeased the FIA, which went as far as denying Ferrari access to a December meeting on next-generation of engine regulations. After a month since that moment it seems that the rift has been mended.

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At the basis of this agreement there is also something to gain for Ferrari, useful to balance the controversial decision to consider Red Bull Powertrains a “rookie” manufacturer. In what turned out to be a purely technological negotiation, Ferrari allegedly received reassurances regarding the use of “Additive Manufacturing” technology, an innovation used to create strategic components of next-generation PUs.

A hypothesis that is disliked by Audi which would have preferred conventional manufacturing techniques for the construction of internal combustion engines. During the last season, the Ferrari Racing Department made extensive use of the aforementioned technology to produce the head of the 066/7 unit.

A competitive advantage that the men of Maranello do not intend to lose since, despite some problems in making use of these procedures given its recent introduction, it represents the most probative laboratory for transferring these processes to the production of road car engines.

In this long affair, the silence of Mercedes and Renault is at least unusual. Only time will tell if Ferrari’s political battle, determined to subvert the “chain of command” within the sport, will be able to compensate for the many concessions and benefits that the Red Bull Powertrains division will receive.