Engine manufacturers and customer teams

Only some F1 teams build their own engines. The others buy them from a manufacturer as customer teams. In 2026 there are five power unit manufacturers supplying the 11 teams.

#Who supplies whom in 2026

2026 brought a big reshuffle. Audi took over the Sauber team and built its own engine. Ford returned as a partner to Red Bull Powertrains, which now builds Red Bull's engines in-house after Honda's official exit at the end of 2021 and a period of running Honda-built units. Honda came back as a full manufacturer, this time as Aston Martin's exclusive partner. Renault stopped making F1 engines, so Alpine became a Mercedes customer. Cadillac uses Ferrari engines for now, while General Motors develops its own power unit for later in the decade.

#Works teams and customers

A works team is the one the engine maker is most closely tied to, either because it owns the team or has an exclusive deal with it. The car and engine are designed together, so things like the shape of the engine, the cooling and the packaging can be built around each other.

A customer team buys its power unit under a supply contract. The rules say every customer must get the same specification of engine as the works team, with the same performance and software. What it doesn't get is the same say in how the engine is designed, so the works team usually has a packaging advantage.

Customers can still win. McLaren won the 2024 and 2025 Constructors' Championships with Mercedes power. The price of a customer engine supply is capped under the regulations, so a smaller team can't be priced out.

Customer teams don't only buy engines. Some also buy the gearbox and other parts, which is allowed for a set list of components. Haas, for example, has long bought parts from Ferrari.

#Engine rules for manufacturers

Engine makers work under their own set of rules:

• Homologation: each manufacturer must lock the design of its power unit at the start of the season. After that, it can only make changes for reliability, safety or cost reasons, with FIA approval, unless it's granted extra upgrades (see below).
• A separate cost cap: power unit development has its own spending limit, separate from the teams' cost cap.
• Limits on test bench time: the number of hours each manufacturer can run its engines on a dynamometer is restricted.
• Supply obligations: if a team is left without an engine, the manufacturer supplying the fewest teams can be required to supply it.

A new manufacturer joining the sport gets some extra allowances in its first years, because it starts from scratch.

#ADUO: the catch-up rule

The 2026 engines are completely new, and with designs locked by homologation, a manufacturer that got it wrong could be stuck behind for years. To stop that, the rules include Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities, or ADUO.

During the season the FIA measures the performance of each manufacturer's internal combustion engine (the petrol part of the power unit, not the battery or electric motor) against the best one. It does this over set blocks of races.

• A manufacturer between 2% and 4% behind gets one extra upgrade this season and one next season.
• A manufacturer 4% or more behind gets two upgrades this season and two next season.
• It also gets extra money to spend outside the cost cap, scaled to how far behind it is.

The FIA is clear that this isn't a balance of performance system like the ones used in sports car racing. It doesn't slow anyone down. It only gives the manufacturers behind more chances to improve.

The first results came after the Canadian Grand Prix in 2026. The Red Bull Ford engine was rated the strongest. Mercedes fell in the 2% to 4% band, and Ferrari, Honda and Audi were all more than 4% behind, so each got two extra upgrades for 2026 and two for 2027. The decision on Mercedes was controversial, because the Mercedes team had won every race of the season so far. That shows what the system measures: only the combustion engine, not the whole car or the whole power unit.

The second assessment, after the Hungarian Grand Prix, didn't change anything. The third covers the races from the Netherlands to Mexico City.

For more on how the power unit itself works, see the power unit and energy recovery and the battery.