• EV Tech Insider
  • Posts
  • Red Bull Ford Powertrains using Siemens Xcelerator for 2026 Formula One season

Red Bull Ford Powertrains using Siemens Xcelerator for 2026 Formula One season

November 25, 2023

Red Bull Ford Powertrains, a Formula One power unit manufacturer (yes that Red Bull and that Ford), is utilizing the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio of industry software to develop a next-generation hybrid ICE/electric-driven Power Unit (PU) for the Formula 1 2026 racing season.

Red Bull Ford Powertrains will construct power units for both the Oracle Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Alpha Tauri F1 Teams and will be one of six manufacturers supplying power units for the F1 series. Since its announcement in 2021, Red Bull Ford Powertrains has aimed to develop 2026-specification sustainable high-speed power units from scratch, while adhering to new specifications from F1.

Ben Hodgkinson, Technical Director, Red Bull Powertrains Ltd, stated, “Siemens Xcelerator is the digital backbone of our design and manufacturing journey, enabling us to concurrently engineer hundreds of rapid design evolutions across a large newly formed team; ensuring each designer has visibility and knowledge of what their colleagues are working on. It is especially challenging as we don’t have the luxury of historical data; every component, down to the nuts and bolts of the engine, has to be modeled from scratch. This means the design quality and ease of use from Siemens’ NX, combined with collaboration and lifecycle management with Teamcenter, is a critical factor for success.”

In addition to Siemens’ NX software for product engineering and Teamcenter® software for product lifecycle management (PLM), the Red Bull Ford Powertrains team uses the simulation and test capabilities of Siemens’ Simcenter STAR-CCM+ software to assist with design and validation across the project.

Robert Jones, executive vice president, global sales and customer success, Siemens Digital Industries Software, said, “The motorsport industry is aggressively pursuing a cleaner, more sustainable future that requires radical reinvention of how teams and suppliers approach all aspects of their development activities. By leveraging the benefits of digital transformation, delivered through the use of Siemens Xcelerator, we’re able to help motorsport partners in the field with their discovery, invention and ultimately, delivery of new cleaner solutions on the track, where rubber meets the road, in timescales previously thought unattainable.”