Red Bull being flagged as the early power-unit benchmark under Formula 1’s 2026 ADUO framework has raised eyebrows in the paddock for one simple reason: this is still, in manufacturer terms, a first-lap project for Red Bull Powertrains. Yet the FIA’s initial picture has them out front, with Mercedes, Ferrari, Audi and Honda chasing.
Audi, unsurprisingly, is among those set to benefit from the sport’s new “Additional Development Upgrade Opportunities” mechanism — but Mattia Binotto has been keen to strip away the noise around what that actually means, and just as importantly, what it doesn’t.
Speaking in Barcelona, the Audi F1 boss made it clear that ADUO is triggered by a very specific deficit. Not overall performance. Not the full sophistication of a hybrid package. Not even the parts of a power unit that can make a car feel “nice” or “nasty” across a stint. The assessment, as Binotto describes it, is essentially about raw internal combustion output.
“The ADUO is made on assessment of engine power, pure engine power,” Binotto explained. “It’s not the full power unit, it’s not related to energy management, efficiency of the electrical system. It’s pure engine power.”
That distinction matters, because it reframes the early competitive order that’s doing the rounds. If Red Bull has been labelled the benchmark on the metrics the FIA is using at this stage, it doesn’t automatically mean it has the best total package once deployment, electrical efficiency and the rest of the hybrid puzzle are layered in. Equally, if Audi is behind in that particular measurement, it doesn’t mean every part of its power unit programme is behind — but it does define where the first, most urgent gains must come from.
And Binotto didn’t pretend Audi’s situation is anything other than what the team expected.
“If you have been assessed that you are down in engine power, I think the first where you have to be concentrated and focused is really on engine power,” he said. “And that’s certainly where we stand at the moment ourselves as Audi.”
There’s a bluntness to the way Binotto talks about combustion development that will resonate with anyone who has lived through an engine formula: the big gains are not sitting around waiting to be discovered by throwing bodies at the problem. You’re chasing efficiencies inside a combustion chamber where the returns are hard-earned and often incremental.
“That’s down to the efficiency of your combustion chamber,” he said. “There isn’t much you can gain in there, but that’s not obviously the overall performance of a power unit.”
The subtext is obvious. Even in an era where power-unit talk is inevitably dominated by the hybrid side of the equation, Audi’s immediate ADUO “why” is old-school: how much punch the ICE can deliver. And that’s the area the FIA’s early snapshot is punishing them for.
Still, Binotto was at pains to cool any expectation that ADUO is a quick-release valve for underperformers — the kind of system where you show up a race later and suddenly find a neat, round number of kilowatts.
“Often, maybe people may believe that once you’ve got that, or maybe the race after, you may introduce 10 kilowatts. That’s not what will happen nowadays,” he said.
What ADUO really buys is freedom: more budget cap headroom, more dyno hours, more latitude to develop. In other words, it’s a tool for digging out of a hole, not a tow rope that yanks you back onto the lead lap by the next round. Audi will get more swings at the target — but it still has to land them.
Binotto’s message is also revealing in how Audi is framing its timeline. This is the team’s first season as a factory constructor, and it’s speaking in terms of a longer journey rather than a frantic scramble to “fix” 2026.
“Our journey is a long journey. We have set an objective by 2030,” Binotto said. “Power unit development, especially the power units, it takes time to develop, longer than maybe some chassis parts.”
It’s a statement that reads like internal expectation management — perhaps also an acknowledgement of the reality of a new works project trying to bite off the front of the grid in one go. ADUO will help, Binotto insists, but it’s a medium-to-long-term lever rather than a short-term patch.
“I think it’s what we were expecting,” he added of the initial results. “We knew that most of our gap to the top teams were on the power unit side. Not a surprise to us, hard work will be required, we’ve got plans, but it will be beneficial not in the short term.”
The other key wrinkle is that the FIA will take measurements at different points throughout the season. That’s important because it turns ADUO into a moving target: you’re not simply stamped “behind” or “ahead” once and left with that label forever. The assessment can evolve, and so can the access to development opportunities that comes with it.
For Red Bull, being tagged as the benchmark this early is flattering — and, by the team’s own admission, surprising. For Audi, Binotto is effectively saying: don’t confuse the scoreboard with the whole game. The FIA’s ADUO lens is trained tightly on “pure engine power”, and that’s where Audi is bleeding time today.
The bigger question, and one that will take the season to answer, is how quickly Audi can translate extra freedom into combustion gains without sacrificing the broader compromises that make a modern power unit raceable — drivability, integration, and all the trade-offs that don’t show up in a single power number.
ADUO may be a lifeline. But as Binotto is already warning, it won’t be a magic trick.
