F1 News: Helmut Marko Insists Red Bull Powertrains Is "Miles Ahead" Of Rivals

Marko explains that with the best minds on board, they are much ahead of the rivals as opposed to Toto Wolff's comments.

Red Bull has always been in favour of making changes to the 2026 power unit regulations and every time they've asked for changes to be made to the governing body, they've received backlash from the other teams who are against the idea of 'editing' the rules. 

Just recently, Toto Wolff hit out at the Milton Keynes outfit by saying that the team was opposing the regulations because they were lagging behind in the development of their new engines.

However, Red Bull's advisor has rubbished the claims by saying that they are well ahead in the development of the 2026 engine as they've got the best minds working on it. He explained to Motorsport-Total.com:

"I don't think we're technically behind. We got people from Ferrari, Mercedes, Renault, and Cosworth [for the engine department].

"We have Ford as a partner in the sector. We have absolute top people when it comes to combustion engines. And we have two very bright minds on the electric side.

"In August, a complete combustion engine with MGU-K and battery is still running. We are miles ahead of Audi, we are miles ahead of Ferrari, and Mercedes is in about right up."

As for the criticism Red Bull received for opposing the rules, Marko says there's logic to it because if the rules require 50% of the car's power to come from batteries, then there's going to be a significant increase in weight. And a heavier car in instances such as Max Verstappen's crash at Silverstone in 2021- the outcome could prove to be a lot different. 

What is stopping the teams from making the cars lighter and smaller are the regulations, again. "If you then need 30 litres of fuel just to charge the battery, then something is wrong in terms of approach," said Marko. 

He also pointed out that making the cars slimmer would cause them to have no air resistance which then deletes the slipstream effect. Marko reveals that there are brands having similar concerns but it is only Red Bull seems to have raised the concern. 

A few weeks ago, Ferrari Boss Frederic Vasseur had said that it was too early to be concerned about the rules for 2026. Marko feels that the gravity of the situation is not being understood by the teams yet. He said "We don't have any allies at the moment," but again emphasises "that's not because we can't get it under control."