Red Bull Powertrains (RBPT) technical director Ben Hodgkinson, who worked for Mercedes’ F1 engine company for 20 years before switching, said that starting from scratch came with pros and cons.
“I’m confident that the team I’ve built is incredible,” he said. “I’m confident the facilities we put together are going to be benchmark. But we’re a newcomer.
“We had to build factories while people started developing engines. So I think we started behind. But I think the people and the facilities we’ve got are better than everybody else. Will I have overtaken them by race one? I don’t know.”
Ford came on board as a partner a year or so after RBPT was established but Hodgkinson said the relationship was “very much a partnership”.
He said…