Red Bull 2026: From an empty shed in Milton Keynes, to the biggest story in F1

Red Bull F1 team were grown from humble beginnings and now face a major shift in their team's story ahead of the 2026 championship.

Much has changed within the Milton Keynes-based squad in the last month, let alone the last year. In December 2025, Helmut Marko officially departed the squad, leaving four-time champion Max Verstappen without his trusty advisor for the first time in his F1 career.

Christian Horner and Adrian Newey also both left the team last season, meaning this year's RB22 and the Red Bull Ford Powertrains’ DM01 that powers it is truly the first F1 challenger the Dutchman has driven without any kind of input from Newey.

But the Dutchman should not worry. The energy drink brand whose motorsport journey began as a sponsor of Gerhard Berger has now turned into a fully fledged works team, and the Sky Sports F1 squad are impressed by Red Bull's early shakedown performances.

READ MORE: Verstappen wobbles as Barcelona outing ends with crash

Red Bull leave lasting impression after Barcelona shakedown debut

Red Bull have already used up two of their permitted three shakedown days at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, with Isack Hadjar taking to the track on Monday and Tuesday, whilst Verstappen got behind the wheel on day two.

With so many unknown variables at play thanks to the Barcelona outings taking place behind closed doors, fans do not have much to go off of by way of official timings or hourly updates.

But UK broadcaster Sky have been providing a testing highlights show on their Sky Sports F1 channel at 9pm [GMT] every night, and on Tuesday evening, Ted Kravitz was joined by Karun Chandhok and Anthony Davidson.

The trio instantly noted how impressed they were with Red Bull given that four years ago, they only had an empty shed in Milton Keynes to show for their in-house powertrains project.

Chandhok kicked off the show by making his positive first impression of Red Bull known, saying: "I think it’s [the biggest story] gotta be Red Bull. I think we have to take our hats off to them. They’re a brand new engine company - I know they’ve taken a lot of people from Mercedes and other engine manufacturers I’m sure.

"But, they have effectively from ground up, started with nothing in Milton Keynes, scaled to 700 people, built an engine and it went round and round and round and round. And really, well done to everybody there. That’s the big story for me."

Kravitz added: "I think four years ago they had an empty lockup/an empty shed, one desk for the builders, and nothing else."

Davidson then weighed in to put Red Bull’s impressive testing reliability into perspective, saying: "The car’s going well. Obviously it’s very early days but my takeaway from the testing so far is that the reliability of every team has been impressive. I was expecting a lot more teething troubles. Maybe not quite as reminiscent as 2014 was, but something closer to that than what we’ve been accustomed to in the last couple of seasons.

"It looks like they’ve all managed to hit the ground running, which is good."

Chandhok then led into the look of the 2026 car, continuing: "I’m fascinated by the Red Bull story. The architects of their current technical situation in terms of being their own engine manufacturer, are gone. That was a decision made by Adrian Newey, Christian Horner and Helmut Marko - all gone.

"So now, Laurent Mekies and Ben Hodgkinson have got to sort of pick up the reins and run with it. This is a whole new era for Pierre Wache - he doesn’t have the big halo of the great mind of Adrian Newey above him. Now he’s in charge of it, and the buck stops with him.

"You have to say, the second half of last year, they would have breathed a sigh of relief, because after a shaky 12 months they got back on track. And I think that would have given them confidence to do exotic things this year.

“It means their correlation is back on track, it means what they’re seeing on the CFD and wind tunnel is translating to on-track performance - which they started to get in the second half of the year. They didn’t have that really from the middle of ‘24.

"So I’m pleased to see they’re going out on a limb and still doing funky bits on the car."

Despite banking an impressive 107 laps during his first outing on Monday, Hadjar ended day two of testing in the wall, with Red Bull not returning to the circuit on Wednesday.

However, neither Red Bull nor their junior outfit Racing Bulls have shown signs of major reliability issues so far, proving it has been a positive first couple of days for Red Bull's new power units.

F1 TESTING 2026: Key dates, times and how to watch live

Related