Red Bull has pushed back against Formula 1’s governing body after the FIA identified Ford’s power unit as the current benchmark under the sport’s ADUO upgrade system, saying it sees no evidence supporting that conclusion.
Teams were informed in Monaco that the Red Bull Ford engine had been assessed as the strongest internal combustion engine, a classification that would allow rival manufacturers such as Mercedes to benefit under the ADUO balancing framework. Red Bull later contested the analysis, and the FIA has agreed to re-examine the underlying data.
Red Bull chief technical officer Laurent Mekies said the team accepts the principle behind the system, which focuses on internal combustion engine performance rather than electrical output, but questioned the interpretation of available data.
“We are completely with the fact that the rule states that you should only try to estimate the pecking order of the ICE power,” Mekies said after the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona. “We are completely okay with that; we have all agreed to that, and we don’t think that is the issue.”
“Where we certainly would like to have a deeper conversation is because we do not see one single data sample that indicates that we would have an advantage over our friends at Mercedes.”
Mekies argued that engine performance varies significantly depending on circuit characteristics, making single-point comparisons unreliable for establishing a clear hierarchy.
“You will need to have extreme certainty in the way you are assessing the ICE pecking order in order to have the right confidence to give it to the dominant team, and not to the team that is chasing the dominant team,” he said. “Especially when you get relative performance variations from track layout to track layout that are perfectly consistent with ICE power sensitivity.”
He pointed to contrasting results across recent races, noting that Red Bull qualified sixth in Canada on a power-sensitive circuit, narrowly missed pole position in Monaco where engine demand is lower, and again qualified sixth in Barcelona, another high power-sensitive track.
“So all we want to make sure is we do not see one single data sample where we estimate ourselves higher than competition, let alone being consistently above them,” he said.
Mekies also referenced Ferrari’s performance in Barcelona, suggesting its breakthrough win reflected both engine and chassis gains following a major upgrade package.
“It was a very, very large package they presented today, so well done to them for the first win with Lewis,” he said. “The gap was closing up slowly between Mercedes and the teams chasing Mercedes in the last few races.”
“And Ferrari has done a very good step forward with their package, and for them to win a race on a track like Barcelona it says a lot about the quality of chassis plus PU.”
