Racing
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The FIA has held back publication of its first ADUO results after Red Bull-Ford, ranked as Formula 1’s benchmark on internal combustion engine performance, asked for extra checks on the data behind a call that would leave it without development relief while giving rivals room to upgrade.
The first ADUO period covered races through the Canadian Grand Prix, and manufacturers were informed of the initial outcome during the Monaco weekend. Under that first ranking, Red Bull sits at the top, Mercedes is in line for one upgrade opportunity, and Ferrari, Audi and Honda for two each.
Red Bull’s case is not that the FIA used the wrong principle. Laurent Mekies, Red Bull team principal, said after the Spanish Grand Prix that the team fully supports the rule judging only the ICE pecking order. “We are completely okay with the fact that the rules state that you should only try to estimate the pecking order of the ICE power,” he said. “We have all agreed to that and we don't think that is the issue.”
Instead, Red Bull is challenging the conclusion drawn from the numbers. “We certainly would like to have a deeper conversation because we do not see one single data sample that indicates that we would have an advantage over our friends at Mercedes,” Mekies said.
He linked that position to the way the system was agreed earlier this year. During spring 2025 discussions, FIA Formula Sport Director Nikolas Tombazis was open to more complex parameters, but teams and manufacturers chose to keep the measurement as simple as possible by looking only at ICE performance.
That has turned the dispute into more than a straightforward data check. The FIA’s current review is described as a factual verification of the sensors and data points used in the assessment, but the consequences stretch further because ADUO eligibility is decided from ICE-only measurements while the resulting tokens can be spent on other parts of the power unit, including the battery and MGU-K.
Mekies argued that makes precision essential. If the current ranking stands, Mercedes could choose to hold its token until later ADUO reviews or spend it on the electrical side of the power unit, while Red Bull remains locked in as the benchmark. In his view, that risk means the FIA must be certain it is rewarding the team that is actually ahead, not one that is still chasing.
“You would need to have extreme certainty in the way you are assessing the ICE pecking order, in order to have the right confidence to give it to the dominant team and not to the team that is chasing the dominant team,” Mekies said.
To support Red Bull’s argument, he pointed to the team’s qualifying pattern on circuits he said were either highly sensitive or less sensitive to ICE power. In Canada, a track he described as highly ICE-sensitive, Red Bull qualified sixth. In Monaco, where ICE sensitivity was low, it was about 0.04 seconds from pole. In Barcelona, which he again described as highly sensitive to ICE power, Red Bull qualified sixth once more.
For Mekies, those swings fit the expected effect of engine sensitivity from track to track rather than the picture of Red Bull holding a clear ICE advantage. He said the variations were “perfectly consistent with the ICE power sensitivity” and added that Red Bull does not “see one single data sample where we estimate ourselves higher than competition, let alone being consistently above them.”
That is why the first ADUO findings remain unpublished despite already being circulated to manufacturers in Monaco, and why the argument over whether Red Bull has really been identified as the dominant ICE package is still shaping the paddock debate before the next reviews later this season.