diff --git a/.buildkite/release-pipeline.yaml b/.buildkite/release-pipeline.yaml
index 1959f9752069f..26c0480cd99ac 100644
--- a/.buildkite/release-pipeline.yaml
+++ b/.buildkite/release-pipeline.yaml
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ steps:
     agents:
       queue: cpu_queue
     commands:
-      - "DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 docker build --build-arg max_jobs=16 --build-arg USE_SCCACHE=1 --build-arg CUDA_VERSION={{matrix.cuda_version}} --build-arg PYTHON_VERSION={{matrix.python_version}} --tag vllm-ci:build-image --target build --progress plain ."
+      - "DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 docker build --build-arg max_jobs=16 --build-arg USE_SCCACHE=1 --build-arg CUDA_VERSION={{matrix.cuda_version}} --build-arg PYTHON_VERSION={{matrix.python_version}} --tag vllm-ci:build-image -e CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release --target build --progress plain ."
       - "mkdir artifacts"
       - "docker run --rm -v $(pwd)/artifacts:/artifacts_host vllm-ci:build-image cp -r dist /artifacts_host"
       - "aws s3 cp --recursive artifacts/dist s3://vllm-wheels/$BUILDKITE_COMMIT/"