Almost 5 months to the day after talks between Porsche and Red Bull Racing (RBR) broke down about the Stuttgart-based car company coming to F1 as a power unit supplier, news broke today that the long-rumored deal between Ford Performance and RBR has been officially signed and sealed.
Ford has been in Formula One in many guises since the formation of the championship back in 1950, starting with their first partnership with Cosworth in 1968, and with its most recent outing being the Jaguar F1 team before it was sold at the end of 2004. It is poetic irony, then, that the company that bought the Jaguar F1 team was none other than Red Bull. Before that, Ford was a key part of Jackie Stewart’s Stewart Racing F1 team, as technical advisors and engine supplier. They also had their hand in developing a multitude of other engines, including providing sponsorship funds and technical expertise to help create the legendary Cosworth DFV V8 that dominated the 1970s and early part of the 1980s.
The dominant Cosworth DFV V8 Formula 1 engine, at one point powering over half the cars on the F1 grid
Through all those partnerships and deals in the past, Ford has powered teams, cars, and drivers that have won a combined 10 constructors and 13 drivers titles, from 1968 with Graham Hill to Michael Schumacher’s Benetton in 1994.
While this deal was literally all-but-signed in the last few weeks, as the leaky dam that is the F1 news grapevine was indicating, today, February 3, 2023, is when the ink was put to paper and Ford will be a “limited technical partner in the powertrains division of Red Bull Racing.” In pure layman’s terms, because of Ford’s recent trend of electric vehicles and powerful hybrids designed to be run on regular and/or sustainable fuel, they’re bringing their best and brightest over to the Ford Performance side of things to help make the new 1.6L Turbo Performance Hybrid engine that will power both RBR and their junior team, Alpha Tauri, from 2026 onward.
To celebrate the news, a fun little Twitter video of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez driving a racing version of the Ford Mustang Mach-E around was posted earlier today:
You’re not dreaming. It’s real. We’re back in #F1, partnering with @RedBullRacing 🏎⚡️ #FordReturns pic.twitter.com/NSLBJ9kQSz
— Ford Performance (@FordPerformance) February 3, 2023
