It’s presentation day for Red Bull, and the championship winning outfit will reportedly unveil in New York on Friday an engine branding deal with American automotive giant Ford.
The rumors of a tie-up between Red Bull and Ford have been swirling for weeks, but according to a report from the BBC, a deal between the F1 team and the Blue Oval is signed and sealed.
The report states that Italian news agency Ansa was provided by Ford with embargoed details of its deal with Red Bull, which were then published by error.
Red Bull, which last year was in negotiation with Porsche for an F1 partnership between the two parties until talks collapsed at the end of the summer, will use Honda power until the end of 2025.
But the introduction of new engine regulations in 2026 will see the team switch to its own power unit that is currently under development at Red Bull Powertrains.
As the force behind the development of the legendary Cosworth DFV engine that won delivered 155 Grands prix, Ford has written one of the most important chapters, and several others, in the history of Grand Prix racing.
However, it’s unclear if Ford’s involvement in F1 with Red Bull will extend to a technical collaboration with the reigning world champions or if its presence on the grid will be limited to a simple branding deal with both red Bull Racing and Scuderia AlphaTauri.
Queried recently on Ford’s potential involvement in F1, Mark Rushbrook, the global director of Ford Performance Motorsports said that the company had put the sport “under consideration”.
“As a company we go racing for innovation, tech transfer, the learning opportunity, but also for marketing reasons as well,” commented Rushbrook.
Ford’s presence in F1 might see it go head-to-head — at least in terms of marketing — with its fellow American automotive giant General Motors, whose Cadillac brand is partnering with Andretti Global in a bid to enter F1 in the future.
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