Current Red Bull Racing

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.

 

[Bill Boddy]

You've got it in one Titch. The fact that whilst this causes the rear wheels to turn in corners was just an unfortunate side effect.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Is four wheel steering banned in F1 then?

 

[Bill Boddy]

Is four wheel steering banned in F1 then?

Strangely I don't think that it is. But it will be if anyone tries it.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Strangely I don't think that it is. But it will be if anyone tries it.

Yeah, the wheels will suddenly become a moving aerodynamic device.

 

[Il_leone]

well Ricciardo crashed the car in testing so

 

[Titch]

That went well.

 

[Rutherford]

How consistent are Red Bull going to be, is Verstappen going to get the boot of he makes a few more errors and swap places with Gasly?

 

[F1Brits_90]

Tell me this wasnt coming. He got away with many times in his career & today. Because many drivers kimi, Lewis, vettel & now Riccardio. Have yielded to fight another day but like it was always going to happen. 1 time someone wouldnt & he felt the consequences

 

[RasputinLives]

A lot of people are saying Verstappen is dumb and doesn't learn but they are missing a fundamental fact about him. He is a hard line believer that intimidation is the best form of both attack and defence. It's been a tactic used by lots of the top drivers down the years from Senna through Mansell down to Schumacher. Max has probably got this attitude from watching them.....and let's face it look who his dad is.

The theory goes if other drivers are unsure what you're going to do then they'll be hesitant around you and you can take advantage. The drivers I've mentioned have reaped the benefits of this through their careers. Max moves around in braking zones and pushes close to the rules on purpose in order to create a fear of him. It's actual worked pretty well so far in his career. The difference between Max and those other drivers is that, for the most part, they knew who not to mess with and when.

Which brings us to Danny 'however late you brake I'll brake later' Ricciardo. That's his modus operandi as we've seen through his career and again this has had good and bad results. He wasn't going to be intimidated and Max should have known that, however Max was going to block him and Danny should have known that. He did earlier in the race.

I'm putting this one down to relented unmoving arrogance from Max and some silly impatience from Danny Ric. Both these traits are probably why neither will ever be a world champion.

 

[gethinceri]

I think both have more chance of becoming world champion than 16 other drivers on the grid.

 

[Bill Boddy]

Remember Perez at Monaco in 2013? 3 times he put himself into a position where he had not achieved a pass but made it clear that he was going through regardless; the third time it was Raikonnen; he said sod it, you're not coming through so there was a collision. Verstappen is using the same tactics and he is getting the same results.

 

[siffert_fan]

IMO the FIA needs to grow a pair and hit Max with a 1 race suspension before his antics injure or kill someone.

 

[cousinDave]

Is there no limit to what F1 boffins can come up with?

 

[Bleu]

Max's father antics led to this:

 

[Olivier]

 

[The Artist.....]

Strangely I don't think that it is. But it will be if anyone tries it.

It was banned following 1993; Benetton had developed four-wheel steering, but it was banned along with traction control, active suspension et al...

 

[F1Brits_90]

They would be insane to ditch him, completely insane.

Every year we get this speculation about driver changes and hardly anyone moves anywhere. Even the logical moves don't happen (hi Kimi)!

They aren’t going to ditch Verstappen. When he accepts that he has things to work on, he’ll be brilliant.

True. When he gets head screwed on he could be unstoppable. Is certainly a future world champion in waiting & you want him in your team Mexico is great example of this. But unless this is a new more forgiving red bull kyvat got sacked (3 times) for less. But we are now going into canada in middle third of season & he has had 1 clean weekend

 

[siffert_fan]

He reminds me most of the late Gilles Villeneuve, so I am far from convinced that he will ever be a WDC. He will be exciting to watch but, IMO, will always be error-prone.

 

[Galahad]

You might be right, but I'm glad nobody was sticking "always" labels on me when I was 20 years old. We live and learn.

 

[Fenderman]

Always hmm. Today, I think I heard Max say "I made a mistake" - referring to his P3 prang - which is, perhaps, a good sign. When he says "I've made mistakes" I may start to believe he can truly cut the mustard (whatever TF that means).