The Woking based team has had Mercedes as their engine supplier since 2021. However, there had been reports earlier in the year of their interest towards the new project the reigning champion team will be launching for the new generation of cars in 2026.
At the moment, Red Bull is still running power units supplied by Honda, but the ambitious Red Bull Powertrain project launched when the Japanese brand had decided to leave Formula 1. The new division will feature an important sponsor, with the return of Ford to the top single seaters championship after 19 years.
The Team Principals of both teams involved have confirmed that they have met in order to discuss a potential deal to become McLaren’s engine supplier for the new generation.
Red Bull’s Team Principal Christian Horner said at a press conference in Bahrain that he was rather suprised by Zak Brown’s visit: “I thought he was coming for lunch!”
“As a powertrain manufacturer for 2026, it’s inevitable that discussions are going to be had regarding potential powertrain supply, that’s only natural that we would speak with potential customers.”
However, Horner also believes that it’s not actually “profitable” having multiple customer teams, keeping in mind the fact that Scuderia AlphaTauri is at the moment the only other team with the same engines as Red Bull.
“Obviously, we’re under budget caps, that helps to contain and control costs. Supply costs are dictated. From what we see now, there is no money supplying customer teams. It’s not a profitable business.”
McLaren’s newly appointed Andrea Stella also brought up the meeting in today’s Bahrain press conference, confirming that it happened whilst highlighting the importance and success that the team has achieved with his actual manifacturer.
“We have a solid partnership with HPP. At the same time, it is obvious that looking further forward, you want to understand what’s available.”
In recent years the British team has run powertrains engineered by Honda and Renault, but its most recent race wins have all been conquered running a Mercedes powertrain, in 2021 and 2012.
“That’s natural. It shouldn’t be much of a surprise,” Stella remarked.
The topic had also come up during the presentation of the MCL60 in February, with McLaren’s CEO Zak Brown confirming that the team wanted to revise its engine deal with the German branch for 2026:
“We’re very happy with Mercedes. We have some time to decide what we want to do in 2026… It’s something that Andrea and I are in the process of slowly reviewing.
“We’re not in a big rush and we are very happy with Mercedes.
“So, we’ll see how things play out in the next year or so before we need to make a decision,” he concluded.
Photo credits: Red Bull Content Pool
