Martin Brundle Delivers Red Bull F1 Test Verdict

Martin Brundle has given his view on Red Bull's first test with its own Formula 1 power unit at the end of the pre-season shakedown at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Teams hit the Spanish track across five days for a test that was held behind closed doors, with fears over reliability stemming from a disastrous rollout of the V6 turbo-hybrid power units in 2014 where cars rarely reached double-figure lap counts at the first test.

Red Bull's task was made even more challenging under F1's newest technical regulations by the fact that it has manufactured its own power unit in collaboration with American motoring giant Ford.

Brundle: "This is unbelievable"

Isack Hadjar, Red Bull, 2026 F1 pre-season testing — Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool

Yet despite those concerns, the power unit proved largely reliable, completing over 100 laps with Isack Hadjar at the wheel on its first day on track and only adding to that tally across the week.

"They've done really well, haven't they?" said Brundle, speaking to Sky Sports UK. "I remember Christian Horner [former team principal and CEO] took me around the engine factory more than one and a half years ago, and I thought, 'my God, this is unbelievable.'

"The scale of it, the number of people and the facilities and the dynos they had there, so I'm not that surprised, if I'm honest. I know they're new to Formula 1 power units, but they've a lot of good people there, a lot of resource and it's a great facility."

While Red Bull was able to complete a high volume of laps alone, it is also able to take data from Red Bull-Ford customer team Racing Bulls, which pounded around with Arvid Lindblad and Liam Lawson to add to Hadjar and Max Verstappen's tallies.

And we’re just getting started 👊#F1 || #RedBullRacing pic.twitter.com/p2cMTDYjb2
— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) January 30, 2026

That is something that Brundle believes will give the powertrains department an advantage over rival newcomers Audi and Honda.

"Ferrari looks pretty solid as well," he said. "I think the teams that have the biggest challenge, for example, Aston Martin with Honda, because there's only one of them, and Audi. There's only one of them.

"At least Red Bull has the two teams with the power unit, and Mercedes will eventually have four teams charging round, so their learning capacity, their rate of gain will be higher, I believe. So that bodes very well for those four teams eventually."

Two further pre-season tests will take place at the Bahrain International Circuit in February before the first race of the campaign, the Australian Grand Prix, is run on March 8.

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