When four-time Formula 1 World Champion Max Verstappen took victory at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia last weekend, it marked the first time a driver powered by an engine with a Ford Blue Oval stood on the top step of an F1 podium since 2003.
The victory is the result of the Dearborn automaker’s partnerships with both Oracle Red Bull Racing and Red Bull Ford Powertrains. It also was Ford’s 177th win in the world’s premier motorsport.
The DM01 power unit that powered this win was designed and built by the Red Bull Ford Powertrains team at the Red Bull Technology Campus in Milton Keynes, England. Ford partners with Red Bull Ford Powertrains across several areas on the power unit, including the development of high-voltage propulsion systems and the manufacture of components for the ICE, ERS, and turbo unit.
Ford also worked closely with Red Bull Ford Powertrains on the electronics, software, and control systems.
“Ford Racing has worked hand in hand with Ben Hodgkinson and his team of engineers at Red Bull Ford Powertrains from the early stages of testing, through to the power unit that we see on track today,” says Mark Rushbrook, global director of Ford Racing.
According to Rushbrook, the win in Malaysia marks a key milestone of the partnership with Red Bull, not the final goal.
The technical partnership with Red Bull Ford Powertrains in F1 gives Ford Racing the opportunity to learn and test in the most demanding and competitive environments in the world, learning lessons that can be transferred directly to future road cars, according to the automaker.
In Related News: Ford Super Duty and New York Yankees Captain Aaron Judge partnered on a marketing campaign that linked the Yankees’ playoff run with the “same grit and determination that drives everyone behind the wheel of a Super Duty every single day.”
Leading up to the start of the MLB Playoffs, two Ford Super Duty trucks towed a pair of massive Aaron Judge billboards through New York — traveling from Manhattan to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, and past all the NYC landmarks in between. A “Let’s Get to Work” billboard also ran in Times Square.
