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).
The FIA never published the name of its 2026 engine benchmark. It didn’t have to. Five manufacturers build power units under the new rules, and when the governing body announced who qualified for extra development help after the first assessment window, four names were on the list: Mercedes, Ferrari, Honda and Audi. Do the subtraction and the yardstick everyone else was measured against is the Red Bull Ford DM01.
That is a remarkable result for a first-time engine builder. It is also a slightly awkward one, because the same engine sat at the top of the FIA’s spreadsheet through the opening five rounds and didn’t win a Grand Prix until round 16. Now it has won three times in eight days—the Sepang breakthrough on October 4 and a sprint-and-Grand-Prix double in Singapore—and the obvious question is what changed. The less obvious, more useful question is what the FIA’s measuring stick was actually measuring in the first place.
What the ICE Performance Index sees—and what it ignores
ADUO—Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities, written into Appendix C4 of the 2026 Technical Regulations—runs on a single number per manufacturer: the ICE Performance Index. The FIA builds it from on-car data, using engine speed, input shaft torque and MGU-K power, then weights the result by how sensitive lap time is to power across the measured laps.
Read the name again. It is an internal combustion engine index. The FIA is explicit that it does not represent full power-unit performance, because the electrical side also contributes to output. In 2026 that caveat is enormous. With the MGU-H gone and the MGU-K now doing far heavier lifting, how a team harvests and spends battery energy across a lap is worth as much attention as peak combustion power. A team can top the ICE table and still lose time on energy strategy, launches, driveability or a chassis that can’t use what the engine gives it.
The championship table makes the point bluntly. In the first assessment window, the FIA placed Mercedes in the 2–4% band behind the benchmark. Mercedes has won 11 of the 17 Grands Prix so far, and Kimi Antonelli leads the drivers’ standings on 340 points, 102 clear of teammate George Russell. Mercedes sits on 578 points in the constructors’ race; Red Bull Racing is fourth on 332. If the ICE index were a proxy for who wins, the season would look nothing like this.
The benchmark pays a quiet price
Being the reference engine is a compliment that comes with a bill. ADUO rewards the trailing manufacturers in two currencies: hardware and money.
- Hardware: Mercedes received one extra homologated upgrade for 2026 and one for 2027. Audi, Ferrari and Honda, all assessed at 4% or more behind, received two for each season. Those upgrades can reach the ICE, exhaust, turbocharger and wastegate, the ERS and its cooling, the MGU-K and the control electronics.
- Money: Under Article E4.1.1.t of the financial regulations, eligible manufacturers gain cost-cap headroom on a sliding scale, from up to $3.0 million at 2–4% behind to up to $11 million per period for anyone 10% or more adrift.
Red Bull Ford gets neither. Every horsepower Milton Keynes has found since the opening rounds has been paid for inside its normal budget and its normal homologation limits, while four rivals carry extra development tickets into 2027. The FIA’s Nikolas Tombazis has described the system as “a Cost Cap relief mechanism,” not a balance-of-performance tool, and that framing is the right one: nobody’s engine is being slowed down. The others are simply being allowed to spend and build their way back.
So where did Red Bull’s gains come from?
Red Bull hasn’t published a parts list, and the FIA keeps the index figures confidential, so anyone claiming to know the exact horsepower delta is guessing. What the verified record does show is where the improvement has been visible.
It isn’t just one car. At Sepang, all four DM01-powered cars finished in the points: Verstappen first from pole, Isack Hadjar fifth, Liam Lawson seventh for Racing Bulls and rookie Arvid Lindblad tenth. Ford counted it as the power unit’s first win in its 16th race. When the customer team scores alongside the works team on the same weekend, the gain is unlikely to be purely a chassis story.
It held up at a very different track. Sepang is long straights and big braking zones; Marina Bay is a stop-start street circuit that punishes traction and rewards efficient energy recovery out of slow corners. Verstappen took both poles in Singapore, won the sprint by 2.591 seconds over Lewis Hamilton and the Grand Prix by 7.335 seconds over Charles Leclerc. Our look at what the Singapore sweep says about Red Bull Ford’s first season covers the weekend itself; the relevance here is that a power unit doing well at both venues points to gains in deployment and driveability, not just top-end grunt.
It still has holes. After winning the Singapore sprint, Verstappen called his start “horrendous again.” In 2026, launches lean heavily on how the power unit and clutch deliver torque off the line, so a recurring start problem is exactly the kind of weakness an ICE index will never flag. And on the other side of the garage, Hadjar started the Grand Prix from the pit lane after Red Bull fitted additional power-unit elements, finishing tenth. A first-year engine maker managing its component pool in October is a reminder that reliability margins are still being learned.
Analysis: With extra homologations off the table, the obvious levers left to the benchmark are the ones the index doesn’t directly score—software calibration, energy-management strategy and how cleanly the power unit is packaged and cooled in the RB22. That fits the pattern of the results: a strong engine on paper since spring, but competitive weekends only arriving once the car and the electrical side caught up with it.
The fine print rivals can’t escape
ADUO is generous, but it isn’t a vending machine. Upgrades are granted only on the first occasion a manufacturer becomes eligible and are not cumulative within a season, which helps explain why the second review, after Hungary, produced no new homologations for anyone. Any 2026 upgrade not used by the final round is forfeited. The 2027 allocations already granted remain live.
That makes 2027 the real battleground. Ferrari, Honda and Audi each go into next season with two extra homologations in hand and Mercedes with one; Red Bull Ford goes in with none, unless a future review drops it behind someone else’s engine by 2% or more. In other words, the benchmark’s best possible outcome on paper is to keep receiving nothing.
What to watch in Austin and Mexico City
- The third ADUO window closes at Mexico City. It covers the races from the Netherlands onward, including both Red Bull Ford wins. The FIA has said it may refine parts of the process in this first year, so watch its next bulletin for any change in method, not just results.
- Launch performance. If Verstappen’s starts are still costing positions at the United States Grand Prix (October 23–25), the weakness is structural rather than a Singapore one-off.
- Component counts. Hadjar’s pit-lane start shows how quickly element allocations can bite. More penalties across the four DM01 cars would hint at reliability being traded for performance.
- The title math. Antonelli’s lead means Red Bull’s late surge is more likely to reshuffle the places behind him than to decide the crown—a picture we broke down in how Singapore blew open the fight for second.
Ford Racing’s Mark Rushbrook called the Sepang victory “a key milestone of the partnership, not the final goal.” The ADUO rules make that more than a line for the press room. The rest of the grid has been handed the tools to catch up. Red Bull Ford has to keep improving with the tools it already has.
About the Author
