Ford issues worrying Mercedes 2026 F1 power unit assessment

Ford's Mark Rushbrook has echoed Red Bull's Christian Horner's sentiment when he claimed that Mercedes looked quite confident compared to the rest of the grid with regard to the 2026 F1 power unit. The 2026 F1 season is going to be a paradigm shift for the sport as it moves towards a power unit with a 50-50 split, with almost half of the energy produced being electric.

The current regulation has an electric element, but it is not as vast or as pivotal to PU power as what is going to be the case in 2026. So much so that the demands seem to have caught a lot of the key competitors off guard. Just recently, there was a meeting among the constructors about pushing the 2026 regulations or maybe moving to a different engine formula, something that Mercedes was completely against.

Since then, the suggestion has been dropped, even though one thing that came out more than anything else was Mercedes boss Toto Wolff's belligerence in sticking with the rules set. There have been rumors that the German team believes it has once again cracked the code of the power unit, just like it did in 2014.

For Red Bull, unlike in 2014, when it was dependent on Renault to build its power unit, this time around, the team is building it in-house in coalition with Ford. If reports are to be believed, it does appear that the power unit might be a bit behind target.

This has led to concerns, for sure, as even Mark Rushbrook felt that Mercedes seemed to be a confident team. In a conversation with Motorsport.com, when questioned about the German team, he said:

"They do seem that way. Christian and I agree on almost everything, so yes."

Rushbrook did, however, add that there's no way for one team to know where the other competitor lies until all of the power units are run in the same conditions at the same time. He said:

"No... until everyone tests on the same test bench and in the same conditions, you can't know. There are only rumors about who is where, who is ahead and who is behind. But the honest answer is: no, nobody knows."

Ford brushes off Mercedes worries as he shares that RBPT continues to hit targets

Throughout the process, Red Bull has claimed that the power unit program continued to hit targets. Rushbrook also clarified that when a certain set of regulations was created, every team reached a conclusion on what was achievable with them after analysis.

The Ford boss did hint that there might be a case of Ferrari or Mercedes reaching different numbers and hence having different levels of confidence. He said:

"If you analyze the regulations, you make an assessment of what is achievable based on those regulations. We have said: 'we think this is achievable and want to get there in a certain way', that is the path we are following."

He added:

"But we don't know what Mercedes and Ferrari think is possible, that assessment could be higher or lower than ours. Anyone can say they are on track, but you can be on track to different numbers."

There is a certain level of excitement and trepidation about what the 2026 regulations could bring. Last time we had a change in power units, it led to one team going on an 8-year run, primarily capitalizing on the head start it had.