Designing a Formula 1 engine has helped Ford gain the edge against Chinese cars, Ford’s CEO Jim Farley said.
Ford announced in 2023 that it would supply Oracle Red Bull Racing with its engines from 2026. On Friday, Red Bull unveiled its car for the 2026 Formula 1 season, powered by the Red Bull Ford Powertrains engine.
In an interview with Bloomberg published on Sunday, Farley was asked how developing the engine has helped him deliver better value for his customers.
His answer was software.
“It’s a long list, but I would say the real signature for me is really the software — the control software for the hybrid system, predictive failure components,” Farley said.
And designing better software is a key step to beating Chinese cars, he said.
“These are the essence of the new software-defined vehicle globally to beat China, and they are really good,” he added. “We need these capabilities from Formula 1, and we can put them right in the Transit van.”
Working on the F1 engine with Red Bull has helped Ford understand LLMs and predict component failures, which can benefit both Red Bull driver Max Verstappen and Ford’s customers.
This is not Ford’s first foray into F1. It supplied engines for the race from 1967 until 2004.
Farley has, on several occasions, gushed about the tech capabilities of China’s automobiles. In October 2024, he said he had been driving an EV from the Chinese tech giant Xiaomi for half a year and didn’t want to give it up.
And in July, speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Farley said, “They have far superior in-vehicle technology,” citing Xiaomi’s phone-to-car pairing capabilities.
Chinese automobile companies, particularly EV makers, have gone all in on smart technology in recent years. An executive of CATL, a Chinese EV battery manufacturer, said during the World Economic Forum last year that China’s automakers were retiring the traditional term “EVs” in favor of “EIVs,” or electric intelligent vehicles.
And after the Chinese AI company DeepSeek launched its R1 model last year, major automakers like BYD, Geely, and Great Wall Motor said they would integrate it into their cars.
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