Racing Bulls have been “pleasantly surprised” by the Red Bull Powertrains power unit, team principal Alan Permane says. Red Bull’s first engine — produced in partnership with Ford — completed its initial running in Barcelona last week, and Permane is chiefly relieved by the unit’s reliability: “I’m not saying we were expecting problems, but we’re pleasantly surprised by how smoothly everything went.”
It was one of the pressing questions across the Red Bull family ahead of the Barcelona test week: how would the power unit perform? The Austrian outfit lines up this year on the grid as a factory team for the first time. Racing Bulls also race this season with the brand-new DM01 — the first in-house power unit from Red Bull Powertrains. The sister team’s principal, Alan Permane, is in any case “pleasantly surprised.”
“It was (in Barcelona, ed.) a massive learning curve for us, but the new power-unit manufacturer, Red Bull Powertrains, together with their partner Ford, did a fantastic job,” Permane told reporters in Barcelona. Earlier in the week the Italian Autoracer had reported that Racing Bulls suffered from overheating problems with the brand-new power unit, but the team principal does not address that. “The power unit has performed very reliably. I don’t want to say we expected problems, but we were pleasantly surprised by how well everything went. That allowed us to carry on with our programme, while the power-unit crew were busy in the background running various tests.”
Ready for Bahrain
The next test for the power unit is scheduled for February, when Formula 1 heads to Bahrain. All teams are allowed six more days of testing at the Bahrain International Circuit before the 2026 season officially starts in Melbourne. “We’re looking forward to going there, and we’re ready,” Permane said ahead of the next test week. “We had three solid days here, put in a lot of mileage, and we go to Bahrain with a very full programme for those two three-day tests.”
