Red Bull and Ford reveal 2026 aesthetics in Detroit

I am so excited for the good-guy Red Bull era. And the good-guy Ford era, frankly.

To me, these designs reveal a lot about the power dynamics. Jim Farley has obviously given Ford Racing a lot of power at the company. It’s involved in every category on Earth, it got a new brand that makes it more separate from road cars this year, and that brand has an official shade of blue that is utterly unrelated to that of the blue oval on the hood of the car. That’s power. And yet, look at what happened in the Formula 1 deal. It’s like Red Bull said, “Look, we’ll use your blue for the shirt, so that way when your WEC drivers take a picture with Max, it’ll look nice. But do not touch the car.”

This resulted in the nicest looking Red Bull F1 car in a long time. I might even call it a definitive livery; it spans the team’s history. And I think the innards of the car reflect a similar dynamic to what’s happening on a business level. Red Bull did not just become a Ford factory team. Red Bull hired Ford as a service provider to the Red Bull factory team.