A major new partnership between the Red Bull Formula 1 team and American carmaker Ford is set to be announced on Friday.
On Monday, Mirror Sport exclusively reported that talks between the two parties were at an advanced stage, though the contract was yet to be fully signed. Agreement has since been reached ahead of the scheduled announcement at the team's 2023 season launch in New York.
The event is set to double as both a car livery reveal of the RB19 to be used in this year's F1 world championship and the announcement of the Ford deal. Mirror Sport understands, however, that plans for the US season launch pre-date talks with their new partner.
The partnership itself is related to Red Bull's engine development project, rather than the team itself as a whole. Bringing Ford on board as a sponsor will partly fund the powertrains department which has been built from scratch to develop power units from the 2026 season onwards.
That is the year when new engine regulations are due to come into effect. Red Bull's power unit design and construction for those new rules is already at an advanced stage though, of course, there is still plenty of work still to be done of the next three years.
The implication is that, since they have put so much resource into building their own engines, there is no need for Red Bull to bring in outside help when it comes to power unit construction. With that in mind, it seems likely that Ford will simply put their name to the powertrains department, rather than bring any technical expertise to the table.
Ford is a fitting partner for Red Bull in the sense that the existing team was born out of the carmaker's last involvement in 2004. They owned and operated the unsuccessful Jaguar team which was bought by the energy drinks giant in late 2004, and transformed into a team which has since won five constructors' titles and had six drivers' champions.
Before those Jaguar days, Ford was a prolific engine constructor and supplier under the Cosworth brand. Indeed, it dominated the sport for a long time until turbo-charged engines started to be widely used, after they were brought to F1 by Renault.
Ford's entry into the F1 world may soon be followed by its big American rival, General Motors. Their Cadillac brand has teamed up with Andretti, who plan to create their own team via the Expressions of Interest process officially opened by the FIA on Thursday.
