2026 marks the start of the collaboration between Ford and Red Bull Powertrains, giving birth to Red Bull Ford. The companies are cooperating in designing power units that comply with the new technical regulations that will be implemented. The unit will consist of an electric motor with a capacity of 350 kilowatts and be able to use environmentally friendly fuels.
Ford will lend its technical knowledge in areas such as combustion engines, battery cells, electric motor technology, control software for power units and analytics to assist Red Bull Powertrains in the development process.
But Ford’s Red Bull partnership doesn’t end there. said Ford CEO Jim Farley Motor Trend in an interview that Blue Oral is also working on an electric vehicle with the reigning World Constructors F1 champion.
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When asked by Motor Trend of Ford’s interest in Formula 1, Farley said:
I was in a review recently with our probably most strategically important EV, and I turned to my skunkworks team who developed this in secret, and I was like, ‘Hey, who did the aero on this?’ And he turned to me and said, ‘Oh, they’re from Red Bull. Formula One.’
Of course, that answer is open to interpretation. A “strategically important EV” can mean many things – like perhaps a new model, a new concept, or even an EV performance demonstrator.
The latter was already teased by Ford in the infographic accompanying the Red Bull Ford press release. This is assumed to be a high-performance Ford F-150 Lightning considering it is classified under EV and will come in pickup truck form.
Whether we’re just waiting for a high-powered electric truck or a more exciting EV with the aero bits that F1 developed is a mystery at this point. What we do know is that we are waiting for exciting things to come to fruition based on Ford’s newly formed Red Bull partnership.
