Red Bull F1 engine chief accuses Mercedes over 2026 rumours | F1 | Sport
A top Red Bull chief has accused Mercedes of spreading the rumour that they could have built the Formula 1 engine to beat in 2026 themselves. Every manufacturer will race with a brand new power unit this season because of sweeping changes to the regulations which threaten to completely upset the balance of power on the grid.
Mercedes are the ones most often named as the favourite to hit the ground running in F1’s new era. They are fancied by many because of how strong they were the last time new engines were brought in, back in 2014, upon which they built a dynasty of eight successive constructors’ championship successes.
Ben Hodgkinson played a part in designing and building those powerful engines and spent more than 20 years at Mercedes High Performance Powertrains, rising through the ranks. But in 2021 he was signed by Red Bull as the technical director of their nascent Powertrains programme and has spent the last four years developing the power unit that will debut at the Australian Grand Prix in March.
And he is of the opinion that all the hype around the new Mercedes engine was generated by the Silver Arrows themselves. Speaking in a small media roundtable, including Express Sport, he said: “I think a lot of that talk originated from Mercedes themselves. My gran used to say, ‘An empty can rattles the loudest’.
“I think my real opinion, I probably can’t say. There’s quite a lot of noise in the press about the fact that it’s believed that Mercedes are going to be the benchmark – a lot of them started by themselves, probably because the driver market is really tough and they wanted to try to attract people in a car that was currently not performing.
“So, you have to sort of layer it on the political positioning that everyone has to make. And then, of course, if you say the rumour enough, it starts being believed as a fact and then people start looking for reasons for it. That’s a bit of a theory as to how it all happened.”
Red Bull hope to spring a surprise themselves and Hodgkinson is particularly keen for the new season to begin, having not contributed to a current engine since joining the team due to spending all his time on the 2026 power unit. He added: “I just want to get my head down and get on with it and we’ll let the results do the talking, I think.
“Mercedes are a very competent power unit manufacturer. I spent 20 years there so I know it very, very well. I was able to make sure that everything that we did here was better than what was done previously. I can benchmark myself to history quite well, so I know where that is. I’m just looking forward to getting started. I feel like I’ve not been racing for four years. I just want to get racing again and we’ll see.”
