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.

 

[FB]

Gosh, Ferrari beaten by up start drinks company and an Italian Motor Sport magazine finds this "exclusive". One presumes Ferrari never use any of their road car R&D to test out the odd new component for the F1 team, or McLaren, or Mercedes...

 

[KekeTheKing]

Well it was a French company, Capgemini, that performed the audit.

And as I suggested in my prior post, I certainly don't think Red Bull were the only ones to skirt the resource restriction "regulations".

 

[FB]

Sorry Keke, wasn't wanting to sound like I was shooting the messenger.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Given the competition that they are up against I find it harder and harder to accept that they have legitimately created such a dominant machine. I'm not the only one.

Is the Red Bull floor illegal? Experts recognised some suspicious scratch-marks on the front-part of the undertray, when Mark Webber's car was lifted by a crane in Monza. Seems like the first 30cm of the floor were dragging on the asphalt and could be flexible. Which is not allowed. The FIA tests the flexibility behind that mark. Opponents are also suspicious because of Red Bull's spendings. Mercedes team boss Ross Brawn said: "Production costs for three sets of front wings, plus bodywork and a new floor are about 800,000 Euros. Plus wind tunnel costs. It would be irresponsible for us to sacrifice that kind of money for just one race."
Full story: Auto Motor und Sport (in German)

 

[Galahad]

The floor is tested for flexibility. If, and it's a big if, Red Bull have found a way to circumvent the regulation, don't think for a moment that the other teams wouldn't do exactly the same, if they were smart enough.

Whenever there's a regulation change, they stay in front. The whole blown diffuser business at Silverstone was hilarious.

Q. Why are Red Bull so fast?
A. Newey

 

[Cookinflatsix]

Q. Why are Red Bull so fast?
A. Newey

And an irresponsible amount of cash

 

[Galahad]

And an irresponsible amount of cash

No more than McLaren or Ferrari.

 

[Cookinflatsix]

Maybe they are using a form of nano technology

And Ferrari are not able to outspend because they do not have access to this tech

Flexing wings and floors that don't flex when people are watching etc seems to be a recurring theme with this Newey monster car

Mac, Merc and Ferrari are definitely way behind regardless of cash spent, it's not that they don't have the cash, they don't know how to spend it

 

[Galahad]

Baseless accusations of cheating are always a recurring theme with dominant cars, sad to say.

If Red Bull have found something clever in the way they manufacture their aero parts, full credit to them for spotting the opportunity and exploiting it. Nothing stays secret in F1 for long, McLaren and Ferrari are probably already working on their own equivalents (again, if true).

And as far as I'm concerned, Dietrich Mateschitz can spend his money how he likes, just as Philip Morris can, or, er, Jeff Vodafone.

 

[FB]

...or perhaps Adrian Newey and the rest of the Red Bull guys are just a better engineers? Don't let the obvious get in the way of a good conspiracy though.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

...or perhaps Adrian Newey and the rest of the Red Bull guys are just a better engineers? Don't let the obvious get in the way of a good conspiracy though.

Hey. Don't worry. I'm not blaming them for cheating. I think it will be interesting when it emerges just how they are managing to do it. However, the best cheats don't get caught. I just hope the other teams can figure this out sooner rather than later so they can all cheat and play on a level playing field. Or perhaps make everybody play by the rules.

This is, of course, speculation though so don't read too much into my comments.

 

[Cookinflatsix]

Jeeze

It's not a conspiracy

Years ago carbon fibre was brand new, mclaren used it first and had an advantage. They could build parts with a material as strong as steel but much lighter, this was much more expensive, soon everyone was using carbon fibre, even on road cars

What would be wrong about RBR paying 5 times as much for a wing if it was a new nano tech based material that could change form according to a pre programmer schedule, such as 'dont flex at 10 mph, flex at 60 mph'

Why is this conspiracy theory?

Hats off to RBR if they have cracked nanotechnology, hopefully it will be on my car soon

It's good to innovate, but it's also good to speculate

 

[ExtremeNinja]

As clever as what they are doing may be, if they are circumventing the rules To gain a performance advantage then it is (IMO) no different to an athlete taking steroids which cannot be detected by conventional drugs tests.

Anyway, I don't want to be all sensationalist about this. Just putting my thoughts out there.

 

[Cookinflatsix]

Sure Ninja, but the point is that the rules can be behind the technology

The rule makers might not be as bright as the highly paid engineers, things like nanotechnology can no way be catered for in the rules so far

So if RBR have a material that can be programmed to change form at almost atomic level it's got to be legal

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Or the means to test the rules are behind the technology. The rules state that all bodywork must be rigid. If bodywork is flexible then the technology which is used to achieve it is irrelevant as far as the rules are concerned.

Not that I would wish to stifle creativity and engineering ingenuity, you understand.

 

[Galahad]

Or the rules are just terribly badly written. I'm no engineer, but I believe it's impossible to manufacture anything with complete rigidity (absolutely zero movement), as the rules demand.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Or the rules are just terribly badly written. I'm no engineer, but I believe it's impossible to manufacture anything with complete rigidity (absolutely zero movement), as the rules demand.

Well, of course. Which is why the current tests allow flex between defined parameters. I don't think it is necessarily that the rules are badly written, more that the regulators are not so sophisticated as those who they regulate.

 

[The Pits]

Personally, one of the things that I find most intriguing about F1 is the designers ability to make the cars as fast as they are with the ever changing and restricting rule book. I think that the clever ways of interpreting the regulations should be applauded.

Red Bull have had a dominant car for the last 2.5 seasons, and to be honest, I think this is amazing. However they have done it. as has already been said, if they are "getting away with it" they are doing it so well that no one knows how they are doing it, and other teams on the grid have worked with Newey, and should therefore know his modus operandi.

The only thing that I take a little umbrage to is the front wing. Specifically the fact that video evidence was not allowed to be put forward to determine the flexing, yet in Valencia, Charlie Whiting using video evidence of the McLaren front wing was able to tell McLaren to "make changes" to their wing.

 

[Cookinflatsix]

It's the same parallel in the financial arena

The regulators and politicians are cavemen compared to the financial engineers who create derivatives that are beyond the scope of clients, bosses, risk managers, let alone the rule makers

It's the hallmark of a democracy, until the government (FIA) start to intervene to help the whole system

Thankfully there is no F1 equivalent of quantitative easing

 

[FB]

The Red Bull PR machine just keeps rolling on.

This is Neel Jani driving the highest "motorable" road in the World.

http://www.redbull.co.uk/cs/Satelli...l-Racing-On-Top-Of-The-World--021243102694939