Red Bull Racing FIA Entry: Red Bull Racing Renault Car 1: Sebastien Vettel Car 2: Mark Webber Engine: Renault V8 Team Owner: Dietrich Mateschitz Team Principal: Christian Horner Chief Technical: Office Adrian Newey Chief Designer: Rob Marshall Race Engineer Car 1: Guillaume “Rocky” Rocquelin Race Engineer Car 2: Ciaron Pilbeam Stats as of end 2010 First Entered 2005 Races Entered 107 Race Wins 15 Pole Positions 20 Fastest Laps 12 Driver World Championships 1 Constructor World Championships 1 Team History Before Red Bull In 1997 Paul Stewart, aided by his father Jackie and the Ford Motor Company, made the leap from F3000 to F1 as an entrant. Jonny Herbert won 1 race for the Stewart team before it was sold off to Ford who re-branded the cars as Jaguar. Ford stuck with it through thick and thin (mainly thin) through to the end of 2004 before selling the team to Dietrich Mateschitz, who owns the Red Bull drinks brand, for $1 on the understanding he invested $400 million over 3 years Red Bull Racing With Christian Horner installed as team principal, McLaren refugee David Coulthard and Christian Klien as the drivers Red Bull went racing. Their first season was certainly more successful than Jaguar had managed, even with the same Cosworth power plant, with Coulthard managing a 4th place at the European Grand Prix and the team finishing 7th in the Constructors Championship. Adrian Newey joined from McLaren as chief designer for 2006 and Red Bull swapped to Ferrari engines. Coulthard managed a podium at his "home" race in Monaco prompting Christian Horner to jump naked, other than wearing a red cape, into a swimming pool. Christian Klien, who shared the car with Vitantonio Liuzzi in 2005 and Robert Doornbos in 2006, departed the team for 2007 and was replaced by Mark Webber. The RB3 was the first full "Newey" car and was coupled with a Renault motor. The car was very unreliable, suffering from a variety of different problems but Webber managed a podium at the European Grand Prix and the team finished 5th in the WCC. Retaining the same engine and drivers for 2008 Red Bull slipped back to 7th in the WCC and again only managed a single podium, for Coulthard in Canada, but the reliability issues which plagued the car the previous season were mainly resolved. 2009 was Red Bull's break through year. With Coulthard having retired Webber was joined by Red Bull junior driver Sebastien Vettel. The new rules allowed Newey to design a car which challenged for both the Drivers and Constructors Championship. Webber won 2 races, Vettel 4 and the team climbed to 2nd in WCC taking 3 pole positions en-route. In 2010 Red Bull justified Mateschitz's investment winning the Constructors title and Vettel the Drivers Championship. They won 9 races through the season, 5 for Vettel and 4 for Webber and took 10 poles. Webber led the title race for much of the season but it was the 23 year old Vettel who stole the title in the last race of the season and became the youngest Champion as a result. 2011 sees the team retain the same driver line up as 2010 and continue with Renault engine power in the new RB7 car.
They've taken good advantage of rule instability as well as introduced some cutting edge design but next season could mark the end of their dominance if this is not over already. I fully expect McLaren and Ferrari to return to the top next year.
Red Bull have extended their Renault engine deal for another 5 years. I guess it's not such a bad engine after all, eh Christian?
Other than sponsorship/publicity does it make any difference that its technically an Infinity engine? I assume all the engines are produced at the same factory but as they are Infinity engines does that mean they are managed by a different set of engineers - is there a chance they could be set up differently? Or is it all about the name on the entry form?
I doubt anything at all will change except the name, maybe RBR might receive an invoice from a different department.
I'm pretty sure Infiniti is only nominally involved. And I'm not sure how much bang for their buck they're getting with this partnership. Everyone knows it's a Renault, and they consequently refer to it as such.
hmmm - would be interesting to find out. I just wonder if in a situation where if Renault provided all their teams with and engine at begining of the year and after 3 grand prixs found out they weren't performing to full capacity but if you did a little tinkering you could get them too for example whether Red Bull would have the expertise of the Renault engine mechanics on hand to deal with it or would have to rely on their new Infinty team having the same know how.
Thats kind of what I'm asking I guess. In the days of Mugen-Honda they were Honda engines given to the people working at Mugen to sort out - hence why they were not quite as good as the Honda engines. I was wondering if the same could apply to Infinty/Renault but it appears that no one knows how its going to work.......probably not even Red Bull
As discussed elsewhere, it's a RENAULT badged engine in the back of the Red Bull. Infiniti only provide sponsorship, which just happens to pay for the engines. However, it's still badged as a Renault, and their entry to the FIA reflects this!
You are right. Just read up on this. It was announced in February that the engines would be branded Infiniti. In March, it was announced that the sponsorship deal would go ahead without the re-badge(!)
Yes and from next season its going to be badged as an Infinity engine, and the FIA entry will reflect this
Infiniti is just a posh Nissan. Renault own nearly half (around 45%) of Nissan. As far as technical collaboration goes, I read it will be mainly on electronics as it's been announced they'll be helping Redbull develop their kers system. Engine will still be Renault badged.
And you can provide references to back this statement up? I agree, it might make sense, given that the sponsorship from Infiniti essentially pays for the engine, but what would anyone gain? Anyway, for a team to "over-supply" the grid, all that would be required would be for the agreement of all the other teams. Personally, I can't see many teams objecting to Renault supplying multiple teams....
Anybody else hear anything about this? http://f1.madeinmotorsport.com/en/h...screpancies--in-red-bull-f1-budget-26944.html I'm actually a bit surprised that we haven't heard more of these allegations coming from, and regarding several of the teams. It's basically an "honor system" right.
