Christian Horner gives a major update on Red Bull’s 2026 engines supply plans amidst McLaren rumors
Christian Horner does not see a tie-up with McLaren happening for the 2026 F1 season.
Christian Horner (Credits: F1)
Christian Horner has come forward and revealed that Red Bull is only going to focus on its teams as far as the supply of engines for the 2026 season is concerned. The Brit has dismissed the McLaren rumors and made it clear that in partnership with Ford, it will only produce engines for Red Bull F1 and the Faenza-based AlphaTauri team.
Christian Horner recently saw the departure of Rob Marshall from Red Bull to McLaren and he was asked whether he was moving away with an engine deal for the papaya-colored team. He simply dismissed the rumors and said, “No, Rob is not going with an engine. Of course, a couple of teams have approached us about the power unit.”
“Our plan at the moment is to supply two teams because we don’t want to overstretch ourselves in the first year. And of course, those teams are likely to be the two Red Bull-owned teams.” Looking at Horner’s comments, it is safe to say that the Milton-Keynes-based team has already got plans in place for its own teams for 2026.
Moreover, as per the Brit, given that 2026 will see the dawn of new regulations in the sport, Red Bull does not want to overstarch its resources by looking after the engine supply of a customer team. The Austrian outfit has AlphaTauri as its sister team to look after and thus would prefer to supply engines to only its teams.
McLaren is in advance negotiations with Mercedes with no talks ongoing with Red Bull
While Christian Horner has indicated that it is very unlikely that Red Bull would be supplying engines to McLaren in 2026, Zak Brown, the McLaren CEO, has also talked about the situation and said, “We had conversations with Red Bull a few months ago as part of the due diligence in exploring what’s available in the market in terms of the power unit for 2026.“
“But at the moment, we are quite advanced in our negotiations with HPP [Mercedes High-Performance Powertrains], so there’s no conversation ongoing with Red Bull.” Brown had admitted to having prior talks with Red Bull but has indicated that his team is in advance negotiations with Mercedes regarding a new deal for 2026.
The Red Bull F1 team is currently the team to beat at the pinnacle of motor racing, with none of the other teams being able to come close to them this year. Moreover, several pundits feel that until 2026, Red Bull would remain the top dog in the sport. Taking this into account, how would the team perform with its self-produced engines in 2026?
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