With Ford gearing up for its entry into Formula 1 in partnership with Red Bull Powertrains, the Milton Keynes-based manufacturer is getting a “very competent partner” according to a veteran of the American marque.
Prior to his time in Formula 1, Otmar Szafnauer worked as Programmes Manager for Ford in the United States, working for the American manufacturer for over a decade.
Otmar Szafnauer: Ford’s racing roots go really deep
With Red Bull opting to turn towards manufacturing its own power units for the new regulations cycle coming in F1 2026, the Milton Keynes-based squad has formed a partnership with Ford Performance to create an engine supply for Red Bull Racing and the Racing Bulls outfits.
With Ford boasting expertise in the area of hybrid power units, Red Bull stands to benefit from its input into the development of the internal combustion engine, as well as the battery and control systems. F1 will keep the 1.6-litre V6 architecture from the current engines but has sought to move to a 50/50 ratio between combustion and electrical power alongside a switch to sustainable fuels.
As one of America’s ‘Big Three’ car manufacturers, it’s a huge partnership for Red Bull as it sets off on its new journey of being a fully autonomous entity in Formula 1, with only Ferrari, Audi, and Mercedes boasting a similar pedigree by the time the 2026 season begins.
While F1 fans may be more familiar with Otmar Szafnauer from his recent spells as team boss at Alpine and Aston Martin, as well as his long tenure at Force India, but, prior to Formula 1, Szafnauer was a long-time senior staffer for Ford in the United States between 1986 and ’98.
While technology has obviously come a long way in the years since, Szafnauer believes the ethos and resources available at Ford will stand Red Bull in good stead once their engineering collaboration begins competing on the global stage next year.
“Ford is a massive and very capable company, and they’ve been racing for a long time, including in Formula 1,” Szafnauer told PlanetF1.com.
“They owned their own team, they were engine suppliers and they owned Cosworth for a while.
“So their racing roots go really, really deep, and they still race in North America now.
“Red Bull is getting a very competent and capable partner.
“Now, the one thing that I learned when I left Ford to go to British American Racing [in 1998], is I quickly learned the things that worked at Ford that would also work in Formula One I needed to apply.
“But there are other things that would work well at Ford that wouldn’t work well in F1, just the opposite, it would slow them down.
“Those things – you don’t apply and you have to have the experience of both sides to say ‘Yes, that would be helpful’, and, ‘No, that won’t’.
“If you mix those two, you can get yourself in trouble. If you don’t mix them, then great.”
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Ford would enter Formula 1 with an ill-fated Jaguar entry in 2001, with the effort only yielding two podiums in five mediocre seasons, before Red Bull bought the team and began exploiting its potential more usefully as Christian Horner assumed control as team boss.
Szafnauer believes the lessons provided to Ford with that failure will stand the manufacturer in good stead for its return to the sport.
“Definitely, as long as those people are still around because you’ve got to communicate that to the next generation,” he said.
“Whatever they learned there, hopefully, it was communicated.
“I’ll give you an example of when I was at Ford. I know other car companies do this too.
“In car programmes, we’d have to go through gateways, and the gateways were just points in time and, at that point in time, you had to have a list of things that that you had to achieve by that point in time.
“You went and you compared what you’ve actually done with the list of things that you had to do.
“Say, a car program was 36 months long, you would probably have 12 gateways that you’d have to go through.
“That too is now being applied in Formula One because it works. For example, in 2023, you’re starting to consider what the 2026 car would look like. In ’23, you’d have one gateway, and in that gateway, you might say do you have at least three aerodynamicists worried about 2026?
“Do you have somebody who’s working on the regulations, understanding the rules, and working with the FIA? Yes, I do. On the powertrain guys, do you have enough of them working on 2026 so you’re going to be competitive?
“You have this check sheet, and it works because it forces you to what you planned to be a good path to success.
“It forces you to either do it or compare and say, ‘I’m not doing it for this reason’, or ‘I don’t have enough resources – that’s why I’m not doing it. Let’s get the right resources’.
“So there are some things that have come to Formula 1 from big car companies that work but, on the other hand, you can’t be overly process-driven, because that’ll just slow down your development.”
Offering another example, Szafnauer said, “When leading big projects, we would subdivide the project – have different subdivisions of project leaders that reported up to one – and one thing that I noticed and thought, ‘You know what? In building a Formula 1 car, I’m going to subdivide it into three areas’.
“I had three sub-project leaders, so to speak, for both manufacturing and purchasing, that they would be responsible for that area of the car, for getting the parts to the car on time, at the right quality level, and that was their responsibility.
“I don’t think a Formula 1 team was ever organised that way, and that was something that I borrowed from Ford.”
Red Bull made the trek to Charlotte in the United States this week, in order to be present at Ford’s 2025 season launch, with Horner joining Ford CEO Jim Farley on stage.
“It’s great to be kicking off 2025 celebrating Ford Performance as together, we prepare for the challenges and changes coming to both Formula 1 and Red Bull in 2026,” Horner said.
“It is a hugely exciting time for the team and, while the prospect of building our own engine is an undertaking that cannot be underestimated, our partnership with Ford is a pivotal one in the overall project.
“Ford has a long and storied history, synonymous with success through 120 years of motor racing and development. Today’s launch is a reflection of that success and growth.
“Not only is Ford instrumental in our powertrain journey, but they emulate our dedication to supporting female talent through their title sponsorship of the Red Bull Ford Academy Programme. It is, as I say, an exciting time.”
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