{"id":400711,"date":"2025-09-05T19:08:23","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T19:08:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/400711\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T19:08:23","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T19:08:23","slug":"laurent-mekies-admits-red-bull-building-f1-engines-as-crazy-as-it-gets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/400711\/","title":{"rendered":"Laurent Mekies admits Red Bull building F1 engines “as crazy as it gets”\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Red Bull Formula 1 chief Laurent Mekies admitted that his team’s<\/a> decision to build its own power units for 2026 is “as crazy as it gets”, but feels this is why it fits Red Bull’s DNA.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Under Mekies’ predecessor Christian Horner, Red Bull went all-in on its own engine programme for the new regulations, developed and built with help from Ford at Red Bull Powertrains<\/a> at its Milton Keynes campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a brand-new F1 engine builder, Red Bull is facing a huge challenge to take on established juggernauts like Mercedes<\/a>, Ferrari<\/a> and Honda, with Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff saying the “odds were against” Red Bull and that it had “Mount Everest to climb”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

When\u00a0Motorsport.com\u00a0put those comments to Mekies at the Italian Grand Prix<\/a>, the Frenchman didn’t disagree with Wolff, but explained that this was why he felt the hyper ambitious programme fit Red Bull’s brand DNA so well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Toto is right by saying that it’s an Everest to climb,\u201d Mekies said. \u201cI think that’s what it is. \u00a0<\/p>\n

“I think it’s as crazy as it gets to take the decision to do your own power unit as Red Bull. It’s an unbelievable challenge to be associated with. It’s\u00a0the sort of crazy stuff that Red Bull does, so\u00a0it’s a good feeling.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Horner previously said it would be embarrassing for the likes of Mercedes<\/a> if Red Bull was beating its power units in 2026, and in less antagonistic fashion Mekies also cautioned that it would be “silly” for Red Bull to think it could be on par from year one.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We don’t underestimate that these guys have been doing it for 90 years or something like that, so\u00a0it would be silly from our side to think we are going to come here and right from the start be at Ferrari’s level or at Mercedes’ level,” he acknowledged.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I think that would be silly. But it’s being set up the Red Bull way at the maximum possible level. We take it step by step and we will see. We are trying to ramp up the power unit and the structures that go around the power unit \u2013 the people, the infrastructures \u2013 as quickly as possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He added: “We expect for sure a year with a lot of hard work with a lot of sleepless nights to get to the right level, but it’s a challenge that we feel very much being a Red Bull challenge. And we love that.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Photos from Italian GP – Friday<\/p>\n

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In this article<\/p>\n

Be the first to know and subscribe for real-time news email updates on these topics<\/p>\n

Subscribe to news alerts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Red Bull Formula 1 chief Laurent Mekies admitted that his team’s decision to build its own power units…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4199,137089,707,4200,137088,138281,749,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-400711","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-f1-italian-grand-prix-2025","10":"tag-formula-1","11":"tag-formula1","12":"tag-italian-gp","13":"tag-laurent-mekies-admits-red-bull-building-f1-engines-as-crazy-as-it-getsu00a0","14":"tag-red-bull-racing","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115153269287784074","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}