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.

 

[no-FIAt-please]

Sebastien Buemi is now the Red Bull reserve driver for 2012.

 

[MCLS]

Which pretty much means that he will be their second driver in 2013 really.

 

[Galahad]

Which pretty much means that he will be their second driver in 2013 really.

I disagree, I think he's purely a cover in case of injury. If they intended him to drive in 2013 they'd have kept him driving and gaining experience in 2012. Whichever of the two Toro Rosso drivers performs best is the favourite for the seat, I'd say; if neither of them impresses, they'll look outside the team.

 

[Slyboogy]

Hm...I don't know. Galahad may have a point, but will one season for both Toro Rosso drivers be enough to convince the bosses on who should get the Red Bull seat?

Not sure one season is enough, considering that Ricciardo and Vergne don't have a threat right now unlike the last two who had Ricciardo hanging over them the past two seasons then Vergne, then I think they will stay for another season, with Webber staying on aswell.

If Webber retires or leaves Red Bull at the end of 2012, I think Buemi may have a chance, as I think one season between the two Toro Rosso drivers is not enough, that is, unless, one destroys the other.

 

[no-FIAt-please]

Hm...I don't know. Galahad may have a point, but will one season for both Toro Rosso drivers be enough to convince the bosses on who should get the Red Bull seat?

Vettel had completed 26 races when he moved to the senior team, that's only 1.5 seasons of F1.

 

[Slyboogy]

Vettel had completed 26 races when he moved to the senior team, that's only 1.5 seasons of F1.

I think Buemi may have a chance, as I think one season between the two Toro Rosso drivers is not enough, that is, unless, one destroys the other.

Vettel outdrove his team-mate by a big margin, had no competition for the Red Bull seat from anyone. Unlike, Ricciardo and Vergne, who have Buemi and each other, however whether Buemi is even considered for the Red Bull seat in if Webber retires in 2013 is an unknown.

 

[RasputinLives]

If Red Bull wanted Buemi to replace Webber in 2013 why take him out of F1 all together and have him sit on the sidelines for a season? Esepcially when they paid out big money to get Ricciardio into a seat last year to get him experience?

As I said in another thread the Moose is there to develop the Toro Rosso car for the youngsters and annoucning him as Red Bull Reserve driver is a way of snazzing the position up for him.

 

[landogeorgelewis1]

If it was a choice between Buemi and Riccardio to take Webbers seat at Red Bull in 2013. At this moment in time you've gotta pick Buemi, Riccardio is pretty much still an unknown and if he doesn't live up to his reputation this year, you've gotta say that Buemi would be the likely canditate for that seat come 2013. Unless Red Bull manage to convince Vettel to letting Lewis Hamilton become his teammate in 2013, which is not likely to happen then Buemi would definately be the one for me to replace Webber.

I really do think that Toro Rosso were given no other choice but to sack Buemi, when their were sacking Alguersuari and as a way of compromise Red Bull promised to give Buemi a test role this year. I'm happy that the little guy will be sticking around the F1 grid this season, we need to keep the Moose in F1 .

 

[RasputinLives]

I'm happy the Moose is around too but I think you're kidding yourself if you think this means he's in line for the Red Bull seat in 2013.

IMO Ricciardo has been the choice for that since the young drivers Abu Dhabi test 2010 - why else would they have paid for him to get some experience in the HRT? They'd have drafted him into to Toro Rosso if Alguersauri hadn't scored that result in Canada which meant he'd operated the clause in his contract which meant he got the rest of the season.

Meanwhile though JEV has been getting the result in Formula Renault and beating Ricciardo hands down whilst doing so and then after he looked pretty good in the young drivers test as well and the honchos at Red Bull decided they couldn't afford to take the risk that he was the real deal so bunged them both in the Toro Rosso for a year and are waiting to see who comes out on top.

It then suddenly occurs to them they have a pretty young line up and still need some experience to test and develop the car - thanks to their late decision their old trusted friend Moosey is without a drive and wants to stay in the pit lane so they offer him a deal to stay and posh it up as Red Bull reserve driver and before you can say Luca Badoer Red Bull have their back up plan in case the new boys go really wrong.

I'm a big fan of the Moose and I hope he does land another drive somewhere but make no mistake this move is Pedro De La Rosa not Mika Hakkenien.

 

[Slyboogy]

It an odd one really...

The reserve usually would be the next upcoming Red Bull/Toro Rosso, either they don't have one (which I doubt, since they had 4 drivers in a similar age group the past 2 years) or they think Buemi is actually worth hanging on to rather than givin him to a competitor for the time being.

Who knows...like I said, it's strange.

I for one hope he gets Webber's seat...yeah im biased .

 

[landogeorgelewis1]

Rasputin = i do agree with what you are saying on this and respect what you are saying.

But some of us are more dreamers than believers, and i'm in the dreamers catergory. It would be my dream to see Buemi teammed up with Vettel and be in with a shout of winning a championship .

 

[Brogan]

Apparently Red Bull are introducing a 24 hour shift pattern at the factory.

The reason why they wanted to leave FOTA now becomes clear (if it wasn't already).

https://twitter.com/#!/markblundellF1/status/156461256197423105

 

[RasputinLives]

Blimey! Being as employment law is my bag I'd be very interested to see what contracts they were giving their staff!

Anyone else think Red Bull are about to buy their way into a decade of dominance?

 

[FB]

Blimey! Being as employment law is my bag I'd be very interested to see what contracts they were giving their staff!

A big fat cheque?

 

[RasputinLives]

A big fat cheque?

if you get into 24 hour working shifts there are all sorts of regs regarding overtime and double pay - not to mention holiday pay - I doubt a company with the name like Red Bull can afford to be anything but in line and generous compared to others so I should imagine there are a few staff at the factory right now who between working their asses off are looking at their bank balance and smiling to themselves!

 

[FB]

Not recruiting - maybe they have just renegotiated shift patterns. Didn't Mclaren run their wind tunnel 24/7 to maximise it's use before the RRA?

 

[gethinceri]

They probably mean that there will be work going on 24hours in a day, as soon as you get people working over about 12 hours the results get poor.

 

[RasputinLives]

You legally have to allow 12 hours between shifts and anyone working over a 48 hour week has to sign a clause to agree to that and ususally anytime over the 48 hours is counted as overtime which is again usually paid at double time.

If there not recruting they've probably just got less people in during the day and people there at night to keep that wind tunnel blowing and write Seb's winning speech on the radio comedy scripts.

Sounds like hard work at the Red Bull factory though but I bet the rewards are plentyful!

 

[canis]

I think Red Bull has unofficially worked 24 hours a day in the pre-season for some time, they don't recruit further staff for this as it is mainly a case of having 3 overlapping shift patterns that allow continuous working, especially in the manufacturing areas (a standard manufacturing shift pattern for a lot of places in the UK, not just F1). The move has been to make this shift pattern official from what I can tell, the manufacturing staff are bing offered shift bonuses etc, plus overtime at weekends during the days, in order to maximise output throughout the season. So rather than having to bribe people to work nights, early or late shifts, they are employed on that basis and paid extra in shift allowance on a regular basis. This principle is just being applied to other areas of the F1 team such as testing.

I know one of Red Bulls suppliers has been working on this type of pattern for years. They run manufacturing from 8am Monday through to 8am on Saturday constantly and then allow overtime between 8am and 8pm Saturday and Sunday. But this works on a give and take basis, when demand is low people will work 4 or even 3 day weeks on tha basis that if overtime is needed in the next 12 months then about half of the overtime goes to paying back the time off they have been allowed during low production periods, so the time all balances out at the end of the year. Because of the nature of the production line it is better to work this way than to have start stop production which closes down over night due to the time taken to get each line back up to speed every time they start it.

 

[sportsman]

Good post canis.As you point out rearranging shift patterns is a very common practice in many businesses to provide better utilisation of existing staff and resources to meet changing conditions of workload.
Simple process.But does increase costs.