Red Bull are poised to announce an engine partnership deal with US car giant Ford.
Ford will join forces with the team from 2026, part-funding the engine Red Bull are designing for the new regulations to be introduced that year.
The agreement is expected to be officially unveiled at Red Bull’s 2023 season launch in New York on Friday.
Red Bull, who will continue to use Honda engines in Formula 1 until 2025, declined to comment on the deal.
Negotiations between world champions Red Bull and Ford were reported by BBC Sport last month and the agreement leaked via the Italian media on Thursday.
Ford sent the information to news agency Ansa without saying it was under embargo. Ansa published the story and then withdrew it shortly afterwards.
It will be Ford’s first factory involvement in F1 since 2004, after which they pulled out following the sale of their Jaguar team to Red Bull.
The multiple world champions are still based at the same UK site in Milton Keynes as were Jaguar and their forerunner, the Ford-backed Stewart team.
Ford will join forces with Red Bull Powertrains, which has been set up afresh for the 2026 regulations, in which F1 will continue with turbo hybrid engines but with increased hybrid performance and the use of sustainable synthetic fuels.
Red Bull Powertrains already employs around 500 people and team principal Christian Horner says they are well advanced with their plans for 2026.
Ford has a rich heritage in F1 – the Cosworth DFV V8 engine it funded dominated the sport from 1967 until the advent of the turbo era in the early 1980s.
The DFV is the most successful engine in F1 history, winning 155 races until its final victory by Michele Alboreto’s Tyrrell in the 1983 US Grand Prix East in Detroit.
Ford continued to have success in F1 until 2003, winning a further 21 grands prix, the last with Jordan’s Giancarlo Fisichella in Brazil in 2003.
The move comes as Ford’s historic US market rival General Motors is attempting also to enter F1 with the American Andretti Global organisation.
Andretti has struck a deal to carry the logos of GM’s Cadillac brand but is planning to use a Renault engine in its car.
It hopes to enter F1 in 2025, but has yet to receive approval from the sport’s authorities. Commercial rights holders F1 and the majority of the teams have so far opposed Andretti’s bid.
Governing body the FIA announced a formal new-team assessment process on Thursday.
FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem, who has been supportive of Andretti, said last month that Andretti was the only organisation which had so far registered interest as a prospective new team.
