Ford's Historic Return to F1: Everything You Need to Know

Buckle up. Ford Motor Company today announced a historic return to the richest, most technologically advanced, and popular form of motorsport in the world — Formula 1. The company is partnering with Red Bull Racing, the defending F1 champion in both the driver’s and constructor’s championship, to build hybrid powertrains for the 2026 season, when new regulations take effect. Decades have passed since Ford’s F1 engine constructing glory days. The last time a Ford-powered car won the F1 driver’s championship was 1994, when Michael Schumacher captured his first with the Benetton team. Not since 2004 has Ford participated in F1 — as an owner of Jaguar Racing.

“After a 22-year hiatus of Ford being in Formula 1, we’re going back,” Mark Rushbrook, the Global Director of Ford Performance Motorsports, told R&T. “We’ll be competing from 2026 through 2030. The entry point is strategically as a technical partner with Red Bull Racing and specifically Red Bull Powertrains, which will be renamed Red Bull-Ford Powertrains. We’ll be a strategic partner to develop the new power unit.”

The Red Bull-Ford engines will power both Red Bull F1 cars and the outfit’s sister team, Scuderia AlphaTauri, so the plan is to have four cars on the grid come 2026. The team will design and build the new hybrid engines at Red Bull’s campus in Milton Keynes, Great Britain.

Ford’s announcement comes at a time when F1’s popularity is growing rapidly and globally. Outside of World Cup soccer, there is no form of sport that reaches an audience nearly as large, and on every continent. In other words, in all the places where Ford sells cars. F1 has seen its biggest growth in the U.S. The Netflix series “Formula 1: Drive to Survive” has become a pop culture juggernaut, and for the first time, the year 2023 will see three Grand Prix in America (Miami, Austin, and Las Vegas). For years up until the Circuit of the Americas in Austin opened in 2012, F1 held no races in the U.S. at all.

Additionally, the new F1 engine regulations offer the opportunity for a fresh start and a level playing field, and a new focus on sustainability, electrification, and cost-efficiency. The 2026 regulations put F1 and Ford (and other OEMs, for that matter) on the same page in terms of vehicle development for the future.

The new regulations require hybrid power units with 1.6-liter turbo V-6s that will produce zero exhaust CO2 emissions. According to F1, the carbon in the fuel will “be derived from non-food sources, genuine municipal waste, or even out of the atmosphere.” The 2026 hybrid engines will run on three-times as much electrical power than they currently use. The motors will provide over 1000 horsepower. The cars will aim to use 70 kg of fuel during a Grand Prix, according to F1. That’s less than half of what they used in 2013. All of that adds up to scintillating technical challenges for the engine developers, and a key laboratory on the racetrack for innovation to be proven for future road cars.

Ford is not the only American brand throwing a hat in the ring. Andretti Global (headed by Michael Andretti) and General Motors, through its Cadillac division, have also announced a plan to enter F1, with a new team headquartered in the U.S. The twist there is that F1 has not yet confirmed whether Andretti-Cadillac will be invited to the grid. But the series did announce on Thursday a new official application process for new teams. “The growth and appeal of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship is at unprecedented levels,” said FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem. “The FIA believes the conditions are right for interested parties, which meet the selection criteria, to express a formal interest in entering the Championship.” Clearly, F1 is ripe for new investment, particularly in America.

“We’ve been looking at Formula 1, watching it for the last couple of years, as these technical regulations came together, as the sport was growing, and we’ve looked at a lot of options of how we can reenter Formula 1,” says Rushbrook. “It’s very fitting to go in at this point.”

Red Bull’s current engine partner is Honda, and will remain so until the end of the 2025 season. The team has launched Red Bull Powertrains to fill the void of Honda’s exit, “bringing the power unit division in house,” as team principal Christian Horner has put it. Ford’s contribution, the company says, will include battery cell technology, electric motor and power unit control software and analytics, and more yet to be determined.