Max Verstappen celebrates in parc fermé after giving Red Bull Ford Powertrains its first Formula 1 win, Sepang, October 4, 2026. Photo: Red Bull Media House, via Ford (editorial use).
Max Verstappen’s first attempt at a launch in the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia was a non-event in the most literal sense. “My start was horrendous,” he said afterwards. “Again, dropping the clutch and not having power. The engine just completely died on me.”
Fifty-five laps later, that same Red Bull Ford power unit had its first Formula 1 victory, with Verstappen crossing the line 2.307 seconds clear of Kimi Antonelli at Sepang on October 4. Lewis Hamilton completed the podium for Ferrari.
That’s the obvious irony. The more interesting one is that, on paper, this win was late. By the FIA’s own engine maths, the Milton Keynes power unit has been the yardstick of the 2026 field since the end of May. It took 16 rounds, four Verstappen retirements and a tropical cloudburst for the results sheet to agree.
A race that had to start twice
Heavy rain pushed the scheduled start back by 40 minutes. When the field did roll out, the procedure fell apart: several drivers reported they couldn’t accelerate, Verstappen among them (“I can’t accelerate! It’s not working”), and Race Control suspended the start. Hamilton said he had to stop on track and restart his car, adding, “I’ve never done that before.” The FIA counted a further 53-minute wait before the field took a standing start.
Verstappen’s verdict on the hold-up was dry enough to qualify as a slick-tyre track: “We’re partnered with Oracle, so we have very, very fast connection. So we were there waiting for half an hour.”
The race was decided by tyre choice before it was decided by horsepower. Verstappen, Antonelli, George Russell and Isack Hadjar started on intermediates; both Ferraris, both McLarens and Fernando Alonso gambled on slicks. Verstappen dropped behind both Mercedes at Turn 1, but the inters were the right tyre on a damp track, and when Valtteri Bottas beached his Cadillac in the Turn 13 gravel on lap 9, the Safety Car handed the intermediate runners a cheap switch to slicks.
From there Verstappen passed Russell, took the lead through the pit cycle and survived a late reset when Alex Albon’s Williams stopped with a gearbox problem, triggering a Virtual Safety Car and then a full one. Russell’s strong run ended when his Mercedes stopped on the start-finish straight on lap 49. “We made the right call with the intermediates,” Verstappen said. “After that, step by step, we moved our way forward.”
The engine everyone else was measured against
Here’s the part the podium photos don’t show. The 2026 power unit rules include ADUO, the Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities system. The FIA compares every manufacturer’s internal combustion engine against the best one on the grid, and anyone 2% or more behind gets extra homologation upgrades, extra dyno time and cost-cap headroom.
After the first review period, which ran through Canada, the FIA handed Mercedes (2–4% behind) one extra homologation in 2026 and another in 2027. Ferrari, Audi and Honda, all more than 4% adrift, got two in each year. The second review, through Hungary, produced no new qualifiers.
There are five engine makers in F1 this year. Four got help. The one that didn’t was Red Bull Ford Powertrains, because it was the benchmark. We covered how that verdict also locks Red Bull out of any catch-up relief for the rest of 2026. On Sunday, the benchmark finally had a trophy to go with the spreadsheet.
The catch is what ADUO measures: the combustion engine. Under the 2026 rules the electrical side carries a much bigger share of the load, so battery deployment, energy harvesting, chassis balance and plain reliability all sit outside that comparison. Mercedes won 12 of the first 15 rounds with an engine the FIA rated as slower. That’s your reminder that a faster ICE is a raw ingredient, not a finished meal.
Why it took 16 rounds
Verstappen’s season line explains the gap better than any press release. He opened with sixth, a retirement in China and eighth in Japan. His first podium came in Canada on May 24, third place on the same weekend the first ADUO window closed. Then Monaco was another DNF.
From Austria onward, the pattern flips. Every race Verstappen has finished since late June has ended on the podium: second in Austria, third at Spa, second in Hungary, third at Monza, second in Spain and second in Baku. The holes in that run are Silverstone and Zandvoort, both retirements. Four DNFs in 16 races is a lot of lost points. It’s also the clearest evidence that Red Bull’s 2026 problem has been repeatability rather than raw pace.
Team principal Laurent Mekies framed Sepang the same way: “This result confirms the progress we have been making in recent months. We were already close several times, and today we converted that pace.” Translation: the car had been knocking on the door since summer. The rain gave it a crowbar.
The bill sitting in the engine store
Don’t confuse a victory with a clean bill of health. The FIA technical delegate’s report for Sepang shows Hadjar took his seventh internal combustion engine of the season, against an allocation of four, which cost him five grid places. Racing Bulls’ Arvid Lindblad took a fifth ICE, turbocharger and exhaust, enough for a 30-place drop to the back.
And yet every car using the Red Bull Ford unit scored: Verstappen first, Hadjar fifth, Liam Lawson seventh and Lindblad tenth from the back of the grid. So far, the reliability bill is being paid in grid slots rather than points, which is survivable in a damp, chaotic race and much less so on a dry Sunday where track position decides everything.
Hadjar wasn’t celebrating. “Even though we managed to score P5, I am obviously frustrated. The car didn’t feel as good as it did on the previous days,” he said. It’s still a useful data point for a driver Red Bull has already committed to for 2027: fifth from a penalised grid slot, in the sister car, on the day the project came good.
Ford’s 177th, Milton Keynes’ first
Ford’s contribution isn’t badge-only. The company says it supplies work on high-voltage propulsion systems, electronics, software and controls, and manufactures components for the combustion engine, ERS and turbo. Ford Racing global director Mark Rushbrook counted the result as “the first win for the Red Bull Ford Powertrains power unit and the 177th win for an engine associated with Ford.”
It’s also Ford’s first F1 win since 2003, when Giancarlo Fisichella won a rain-wrecked Brazilian Grand Prix for Jordan. Wet races, it turns out, are where Ford’s F1 droughts go to die.
For Red Bull, the milestone is bigger than the badge. Red Bull Powertrains was set up under Christian Horner after Honda announced its original F1 exit, and Horner left the team in July 2025. The factory he commissioned won without him on the pit wall. Mekies credited “all the people involved who have been working incredibly hard on this project over the past five years.” Verstappen put it more simply: “To win our first race in our first year with our own power unit is pretty impressive.”
There’s a historical rhyme too. The last F1 race at Sepang, in 2017, was also won by Verstappen. Nine years later, Sepang is hosting the Bahrain Grand Prix after F1, the FIA and the Bahraini and Malaysian governments agreed in July to relocate it rather than lose the round.
What to watch in the last seven rounds
The title remains a Mercedes family matter. Russell’s retirement stretched Antonelli’s lead to 84 points, 320 to 236, with seven rounds left. Verstappen is sixth on 188 points, level with Lando Norris, and Hadjar is eighth on 96.
- Dry-weather proof. Sepang rewarded the right tyre call and clean execution in chaos. A dry win would say more about the whole package than a wet one.
- Grid penalties. Hadjar is already on ICE number seven. Watch how many more fresh elements Red Bull fits before the season ends, and whether it bundles them at tracks where overtaking is easier.
- The 2027 development race. Being the benchmark means no ADUO help. Mercedes, Ferrari, Audi and Honda all carry extra homologations into next season, so Red Bull Ford’s lead on the dyno has a shelf life unless Milton Keynes keeps finding power on its own budget.
- P5 in the standings. Verstappen and Norris are tied. For a driver signed with Red Bull through 2030, a late-season climb would be the clearest sign the project has turned a corner.
Red Bull spent half a season with the best engine on paper and no wins to show for it. Sepang doesn’t end that argument, but it changes the question from “can it win?” to “can it do it when it doesn’t rain?”
About the Author
