The boss of Red Bull's new power unit division has spoken of the "evolving beast" nature of setting up an engine department from scratch.
For 2026, Red Bull Powertrains is joining the grid as Red Bull's in-house power unit supplier, with the company first being launched in 2022 in preparation for the rare step.
Red Bull has become the first non-manufacturer team to create its own power unit in the 21st century, but RBPT boss Ben Hodgkinson has revealed how, as well as designing an engine, his focus has also been on building a culture and meshing together the experience RBPT has managed to lure from rival teams.
"When I first got presented with the opportunity, I loved the idea of it being a blank sheet of paper, not just the power unit, but the whole company," Hodgkinson told media, including RacingNews365.
"We could custom-build it to what we knew the regulations were going to be, and try to turn that into an advantage, but starting from scratch is a very short sentence, but the gravity of what that meant took a while to really sink in, and trying to find what has turned into 700 people in a short space of time has been a real challenge.
"When the company started, it was just five people in a small office before the factories were built, and then every month, 20 or more people started, so your roles and responsibilities changed from week to week, so you had one person designing, ordering, and building bits, and the next week, the guy that built them turned up.
"It's just been a constantly evolving beast, and meanwhile, we've got to try and settle into what the Red Bull culture is, and extract everything from that knowledge from all the starters we've got to make sure we are getting the best of all those worlds.
"But I think that created real cognitive diversity in the group, and the only thing is that, if it was deliberate, we'd be geniuses, but it was an accident, but if you create a really bold and audacious project, it really attracts bold and audacious people.
"All the people who are cautious and think that it sounds risky, they stay put, and so these sorts of people fit the Red Bull culture absolutely like a glove, and it is brilliant for the rate of innovation.
"So it has been an exciting and pretty intense four years."
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