Red Bull Ford Powertrains has been deemed to have the leading V6 combustion engine in Formula 1, Autosport has been able to confirm, following Lewis Hamilton's revelation that Ferrari is getting upgrade help.
Following the Canadian Grand Prix F1's governing body the FIA measured the performance of all V6 combustion engines to determine both the benchmark power unit as well as the deficit of its competitors.
On a sliding scale for every 2% of V6 performance deficit, power unit manufacturers are afforded additional homologation tokens, including additional dyno hours and cost cap allowance, to work on their engines outside the standard regulatory windows and constraints.
An official announcement is expected to be incoming as early as Monday, as per the regulations the FIA has to publish its findings 14 days after the Canadian Grand Prix.
But following the Monaco Grand Prix, Ferrari driver Hamilton let slip that Red Bull Ford Powertrains had surprisingly come out on top as the benchmark, followed by Mercedes and then Ferrari.
Autosport has since been able to confirm that Mercedes' deficit exceeds the 2% threshold, meaning it will qualify for one homologation token under the ADUO system, while Ferrari is expected to receive two tokens because it is over 4% behind.
Audi and Honda are believed to be even further behind, as expected, although at the time of writing it is not yet entirely clear how much help they will get.
Hamilton did caution that ADUO is not a silver bullet, as there is a vast difference between being allowed to upgrade the V6 engine and actually being able to make significant improvements to it within a reasonable timeframe.
"I think the news came out either yesterday or today that Red Bull have the most powerful engine, Mercedes second, and then we're behind," Hamilton told Sky Sports F1. "So, we've now got these tokens to try and develop and close the gap.
"But that's like an eight-to-10-month project, so it's not something we can just do next week. We'll be pushing as hard as we can to see how we can close it out."
ADUO has been a hot topic, as it was initially conceived as a way to avoid a Honda 2017 scenario where one manufacturer would be significantly behind the competition. But because of the sliding scale of upgrade opportunities, the battle soon became political.
