Max Verstappen issues Red Bull instruction after frustrating failures

Max Verstappen is keen for his Red Bull team to find minor improvements to its first in-house F1 engine - but is not overly concerned by the new project.

For the first time, Red Bull committed to building a power unit in grand prix racing, doing so for 2026 in a technical alliance with Ford, with the new unit debuting in competition at the Australian GP.

It had already turned heads during pre-season testing, but once the season began, Red Bull settled into the fourth-best team owing to a retirement for Isack Hadjar in Australia with an engine failure, and then an ERS cooling leak for Verstappen in China. 

Despite 2026 being the team's worst start to a season in terms of points gained over the first three races, 16, compared to 13 in 2015, Verstappen was largely content with the RBPT-Ford unit bolted behind him, but wants minor improvements to unlock its potential as Red Bull also tries to reduce its overweight RB22 chassis.

"Our energy deployment is good; that is not our biggest problem," Verstappen told media, including RacingNews365.

"I think, actually, from the engine side, yes, correlation and calibration can be better, but actually in terms of pure power, it is not our worst thing for sure.

"We are not like Mercedes; they're super strong, so we have a lot more work to do. 

"We need to understand the engine deployment a little bit better, and just be a bit more solid, but we're doing okay. 

"But there is still some stuff that I want better from that side in terms of the calibration and communication, but that is normal, you know?

"It is still a very new project, and I know that everyone is working flat out and giving their very best, so we will just keep trying."