Why Red Bull has F1’s top-ranked engine, and what it reveals about ADUO

The FIA’s ADUO announcement – the Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities for Formula 1 power units – had been a long time coming. In fact, after the results of the first period were shared with all teams and manufacturers at the Monaco Grand Prix, the press release was ready to go in exactly this form. The only thing missing was the sentence about the second period.

The long wait was due to Red Bull expressing considerable dissatisfaction with the outcome of the first period behind the scenes, with even Oliver Mintzlaff getting involved.

However, Red Bull had very few ways to challenge the result. The system undeniably has its weaknesses – more on those later – but the teams and manufacturers themselves agreed to it last year.

Red Bull Ford Powertrains could therefore only request a factual review, but that did not change the outcome either. FIA single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis said the governing body’s measurements had proved correct, despite Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies arguing that there was “not a single data point” showing that Red Bull had the best engine.

Among other things, Red Bull pointed to its deficit at power-sensitive tracks. According to Mekies, that deficit was greater than at circuits such as Monaco and the Hungaroring, where the power units play a less significant role. In reality, that picture is also related to energy management at energy-starved tracks and how good – or not – a power unit is in that respect.

Those are factors the FIA does not take into account, as the ADUO ranking only measures the power output of the internal combustion engine. The FIA cannot publicly reveal too much about the exact measurement methods and data, not least because they involve intellectual property and confidential information.

“Due to the confidential nature of this information, no further details on power unit performance index measurements will be communicated,” the FIA statement reads.

As a result, the press release merely states that Mercedes falls into the 2%-4% deficit category, which earns it one upgrade opportunity in 2026 and another in 2027. Ferrari, Audi and Honda all fall into the plus-4% deficit category, which gives them two new homologations – and therefore updates – in the current season and two more next year.

In addition, all of these manufacturers receive extra financial headroom under the budget cap for power unit manufacturers. For Mercedes High Performance Powertrains, that means a cost cap allowance of up to $3m, while Ferrari receives up to $4.65m.

Notably, an additional safety net has been introduced specifically for manufacturers in serious trouble – such as Honda. A manufacturer more than 10% behind the best ICE would receive a cost cap allowance of up to $11m per ADUO period, plus an additional $8m for 2026 as a whole, but it was understood after the first period that Honda did not fully meet the criteria for that back then.

The Japanese manufacturer can nevertheless live with the outcome of the FIA’s analysis.

“I think the number we received from the FIA looks reasonable. I would say that number is fair. And also, thanks to ADUO, we are now working hard to develop our engine,” chief engineer Shintaro Orihara told Autosport.

FIA wanted to factor in championship standings – has Red Bull’s stance backfired?

The second period subsequently did not result in any additional tokens being handed out, indicating that the picture has not changed significantly.

For Red Bull, this could theoretically mean one of two things: either the newcomer is still right at the top of the ICE ranking, or its deficit is less than 2%. The latter scenario would not yield a token either.

However, Autosport understands that the ranking and the gaps between the manufacturers remain broadly the same. This means Red Bull Ford Powertrains is indeed rated by the FIA as having the best internal combustion engine in F1.

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has acknowledged that the Silver Arrow has the best power unit, but as is well known, ADUO only looks at the internal combustion engine. This immediately highlights one of the system’s weaknesses: the measurement only concerns the ICE, but the upgrade opportunities consequently awarded go much further and also cover the electrical components.

Mercedes has the best power unit in F1, as Toto Wolff also acknowledged, but has nevertheless received a token

Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images

Red Bull is still lacking on the electrical side, but because it has the most powerful ICE, it cannot do anything about that. And so the newcomer is effectively checkmated.

It is a weakness of the system, but the FIA cannot fully be blamed for it. Tombazis has told media that he was open to taking more parameters into account, but teams and manufacturers pushed to keep the system as simple as possible.

That includes the size of the turbo, an aspect Tombazis wanted to factor in. In practice, that did not happen, allowing Ferrari to benefit. The Italian manufacturer had an advantage off the line at the start of this year, thanks to its smaller turbo, but paid a price in terms of power. ADUO does, however, allow Ferrari to work on that, especially now that it has received two tokens.

It raises the question of whether that is fair given that these are deliberate design choices, but that is simply how the system works.

Moreover, the FIA intended to take the championship standings into account. After all, ADUO was not designed to give the dominant force even more upgrade opportunities, but according to insiders, Red Bull was among those opposed to factoring in the championship standings.

That was understandable based on what was known at the time, but in the current reality it has come back to bite Red Bull. When the discussions took place last year, it was not unreasonable for Red Bull to think as follows: ‘As a newcomer, we are probably going to be more than 2% behind, but if the chassis is good, we could still be relatively high up in the championship standings. In that case, it would logically be advantageous if the FIA did not take that aspect into account.’

In practice, however, the situation is the opposite: Red Bull’s ICE is highly competitive, but its chassis was below par at the start of this year, meaning the championship standings do not make for pretty reading from Red Bull’s perspective and could actually have provided a lifeline.

Red Bull’s chassis has proved to be below par, which means, with hindsight, it would have been better for them had the championship standings been taken into account

Photo by: Eric Le Galliot

FIA acknowledges weaknesses in ADUO system – what’s next?

All of this explains why Red Bull is the only manufacturer not allowed to work on its power unit during the season. There is still one opportunity to change that: the third period, which ends after the Mexico City Grand Prix.

Red Bull, however, does not control its own fate, which instead depends on its rivals. If they do not use their upgrades on the ICE – Mercedes in particular – and do not suddenly, for whatever reason, extract more from it than they have so far, Red Bull will remain checkmated.

The ADUO results have therefore not only revealed something about Red Bull, but also exposed some weaknesses of the system. The FIA readily acknowledges that as well, for example when Autosport asked Tombazis in Hungary whether the system was currently working as it should.

“I think our measurement, in my opinion, has proven to be very accurate,” he replied. “With that said, has everything worked fine? No, because obviously people are not happy and so on. Do we need to think about improvements in the future? Yes, I would say so.”

When announcing the results, Tombazis once again indicated that the system may need to be overhauled for the coming years: “This is the first year of ADUO so naturally there are areas which we may evolve over time, in discussion with all the PU manufacturers.”

Behind the scenes, however, that process is not yet very advanced and will need to lead to more concrete proposals in the coming months.

In that respect, the current outcome is perhaps the clearest possible illustration of some of the system’s weaknesses: the manufacturer with the best overall power unit in F1 does receive development opportunities based on its ICE deficit, while a manufacturer that is lacking on the electrical side is not allowed to do anything about it because of the ADUO figures.

It provides food for thought for the longer term, but for now the manufacturers and teams – including Red Bull – also need to look in the mirror, given that they agreed to this system last year.

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– The Autosport.com Team