Red Bull seeks FIA talks over alleged F1 engine benchmark status

Red Bull questions FIA engine assessment

Red Bull is seeking a detailed “conversation” with the FIA over how its internal combustion engine has allegedly been assessed as the strongest in Formula 1 under the new 2026 regulatory framework.

However, some drivers and senior team figures have indicated that Red Bull’s internal combustion engine was considered the most competitive. If that finding is upheld, Red Bull would be prevented from applying an engine upgrade this year, while rival manufacturers that avoided benchmark status would be permitted to do so. That potential competitive consequence makes the FIA’s methodology a critical point of contention, especially as Ferrari is already linked with an aggressive ADUO development push in a related report on planned engine upgrades after ADUO analysis.

Mekies: Red Bull sees no data showing an advantage

Mekies said the team accepts the principle of the regulation, but wants clarity on how the current assessment has been reached. “We are completely okay with the fact that the rule states that you should only try to estimate the pecking order of the ICE power,” he told media including RacingNews365.

“We are completely okay with that, we have all agreed to that, and we don't think that is the issue. Where we certainly would like to have a deeper conversation is because we do not see one single data sample that indicates that we would have an advantage over our friends at Mercedes.”

Track evidence forms Red Bull’s case

Mekies pointed to Red Bull’s performance at circuits with contrasting power sensitivity as evidence that the alleged conclusion does not align with the team’s own competitive picture.

He argued that the FIA would need extreme certainty before assigning benchmark status to a team chasing what he described as the dominant team, rather than to that dominant team itself.

“Especially when you get relative performance variations from track layout to track layout that are perfectly consistent with ICE power sensitivity,” Mekies said.

He cited Canada and Barcelona as high ICE power sensitivity venues where Red Bull qualified sixth, compared with Monaco, a lower ICE power sensitivity circuit, where the team qualified around four hundredths from pole.

“We do not see one single data sample where we estimate ourselves higher than the competition, let alone being consistently above them,” he added.

For Red Bull, the dispute is not over the existence of ADUO, but over the confidence level required before restricting a manufacturer’s upgrade path.