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.

 

[ZakspeedYakspeed]

So if the red bull appeal is upheld, can we expect all the teams to rip up the book marked "technical directives" and just do what the hell they like?

If anyone is at fault here it is the FIA and the QAQC process on equipment they have mandated ...

If the calibration issues around the sensor cannot be resolved ... and the RBR sensor is tested and proved signficantly more reliable ... then mandate everyone uses the RBR sensor ... pay off the current manufacturer with a thanks but no thanks and force RBR to provide them for $1 each for being smart arses and calling out the FIA on their own mess ...

oh ... and find new work for the FIA's team of crack sensor monitoring koala's ...

 

[Mephistopheles]

It doesn't really matter whether the measuring equipment they were told to use was faulty or not, the FIA could have told them to measure the fuel rate with a lump of lead tied to a piece of string for all I care the fact is they used a different measuring system from everyone else and one which was outside the stewards ability to monitor that is what counts nothing else and that is what will be discussed in the appeal the sensors are a completely separate issue, in my view that is....

 

[gethinceri]

Why don't we just all sit back and wait for the court to decide?

Because this is the internet.

 

[Quintessentially]

teabagyokel has explained the point so many times but some people simply choose to ignore. The point for the nth time is really not about the reliability of the sensors but Redbull's flippant disregard for FIA advice. The issue of technical directives is a collaborative approach that works well and allows the FIA to police the regulations without always having to drag the teams to court and vice versa. Redbull are now saying that because TD is an opinion and not part of the regulations, they did not have to follow it. What kind of message does this send out to the rest of the paddock? Like the RRA, Horner et al have taken it upon themselves to interpret the rules how they see fit, and the soundbites coming out of the paddock suggest there's a lot of irritation towards their actions.

Graeme Lowdon fears appeal win for Redbull would open the floodgates in f1

Lowdon, however, believes advice issued by the FIA outside of the written regulations should be heeded and F1 will enter dangerous territory if the stewards' ruling in the Red Bull case is overturned in Paris.

"If Red Bull chose to ignore the guideline from the FIA then they will have only done that to make their car go quicker - there's no reason why they would have done anything other than that. Therefore if that was the approach that every single team took then without any question every single result would always be decided in the International Court of Appeal, and that's not really what it's meant for and it wouldn't be good for the fans and, you'd argue, it wouldn't be good for the sport."

"That's why we have this system where the FIA give their opinion. It happens on things all the time," he explained. "We seek Charlie Whiting's opinion on a lot of things and he gives it and I think there's a general view that it's good for the teams to follow that advice, even though it might not necessarily constitute a part of the Technical Regulations.

"It is an opinion and if we were just to ignore all of those opinions and constantly test them in a court then the sport would just stutter along endlessly. From what I understand, a number of teams were given advice by the FIA on what they should do with regard to fuel consumption and I think most of them followed it. It really is going to be difficult for the sport to operate races in a way that the fans are really going to understand if the advice is simply ignored because you can make a car go quicker."

"Certainly we experienced some circumstances on the fuel flow where we had to make some decisions, I think most of the teams made those decisions in accordance with how the FIA thought the teams would act, which is to err on the side of ensuring that your car is safe and legal at all times, which is the stipulation that's in the Sporting Regulations.

"I know whenever we were presented with a decision to make we took it into accordance with the guidelines that have been issued with the FIA."

 

[Quintessentially]

The FIA have only themselves to blame for this situation ...

I hate repeats. It's easy to lay blame on the FIA's door and ignore the simple fact that the majority of teams followed said advice and only one clever team chose to ignore. Had everyone taken Redbull's approach, it is debatable whether they would've finished second.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Is it just me or is this sentence by Horner complete fucking gibberish?

"We are appealing on the grounds that we do not believe, we are extremely confident, that we have not broken the rules, that we haven't exceeded the 100kg/h of fuel that is permitted to be utilised by the car and the engine," Horner told Sky

It starts off by stating that, "We are appealing on the grounds that we do not believe, we are extremely confident" and then goes on ot make even less sense...

http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/1...ull-are-extremely-confident-of-winning-appeal

Does he not realise that whether or not the car used more than 100kg/h at any point during the race is not the issue in hand? I'm fucked if I know what he is going on about.

 

[teabagyokel]

Mephistopheles - A long winded way of saying "Yeah, no", certainly.

That sentence is a complex linguistic somersault of a position. I'll bet Horner is one of those people who it is impossible to argue with because he manages to state all positions in a multiple-negative statement.

More realistic version: "Yeah, no, erm... we'll get off because they've caved on far worse breaches before."

 

[The Artist.....]

Personally, I've reached the point with Red Bull that I believe that they need to be given a multiple race ban for this; what is the difference between Red Bull's complete ignoring of the FIA to Michael Schumacher at Silverstone '94? Or BAR's ignoring of a technical directive (which was not written down anywhere) that fuel could not be used as ballast? I'd suggest that these are the appropriate situations to compare this with!

 

[RasputinLives]

Something I never thought I'd say:

I miss Max.

He'd have already banned em by now. Not to mention Ron Dennis wouldn't be here.

What is mentioned very little by the way is that Toro Rosso used the FIA's device. Why do it with one team and not the other if you don't know you're doing something wrong?

 

[Hamberg]

Because one team has yes-no Horner in charge who has about as much integrity as a hyena.

 

[GeoffP]

Let's face it, Ricciardo coming 2nd was an unforeseen upside for Red Bull, so they threw the dice to try to influence how they were treated in future races once they were back in contention not realising there could be a cost.

I personally don't think they want this appeal, but owe it to Daniel. They were simply trying to see if they could set a precedent enabling to use a non-standard device.

This 2nd place with the profile of the result forcing the disqulification has buggered their mid-season - With Mateschitz stating "to do with sportsmanship and political influence" I believe it is the "political" influence of precedent he's sore at losing.

As usual every F1 team probes the limit of interpretation of the rules, but Red Bull try that little bit harder and Matey boy is making himself look like a tit.

 

[Blog Zbod]

Our argument is very simple - that we haven't broken the Technical Regulations. That we haven't exceeded the fuel flow limit and that the sensor, which hopefully we will be able to demonstrate in the appeal, is erroneous.

I think the problem with the Technical Directive is that as we have seen in the Pirelli tyre case or the double diffuser days, that the directive, as it now states on the bottom of the directive, is the opinion of the Technical Delegate - it is not a regulation, it is not regulatory, it is purely an opinion.

We are bound by the Technical and Sporting Regulations. 5.1.4 of the Technical Regulations says you must not exceed 100kg/h of fuel usage - we haven't done that. Therefore our view is we haven't broken the regulations and Technical Directives are of non-regulatory value.

-- Christian Horner

A FIA tribunal's findings confirm Horner's contention that technical delegates opinions do not rise to the threshold of regulation, and the tides to not obey the command of Charlie Whiting.


But the exclusion/protest is just the misdirection. Red Bull almost certainly are cooking up something. Horner and Newey did not stage this on their own, and judging from how vociferously Mateschitz has been supporting their position, I am inclined to believe he is its author. Michael Schmidt writes at AMuS that he thinks Mateschitz and Ecclestone are cooking up a break-away. He takes some bold leaps of logic to get there but I have to agree that Melbourne was the feint. We've yet to see the knock-out punch.

 

[Titch]

I see that Mr Horner is confident that the appeal will go in their favour.. that's confidence for you, or should that read arrogance.

 

[Blog Zbod]

TBY summed up the situation brilliantly a few posts back, but I just wanted to add in Joe Saward's take on the situation.

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2014/03/22/the-red-bull-appeal/

"the ethos at Red Bull, as seen clearly last year, is that winning is all that matters, even if that means crapping on the sport. In my view that is what has happened here...."

In Chris Horner's opinion, that is precisely what happened in 2009. The FIA's decision over Brawn's double-diffuser prompted Red Bull to tear the word "sportsmanship" from their dictionary. Now their mantra is, "The regulation have no "spirit," only letters."

Bernie will be pleased if they do leave, as he only wants 10 teams in the sport.

Except that if Red Bull go, they might be taking Bernie with them. Bernie personally holds exclusive contracts with many of the F1 circuits, and who knows where else his tentacles run? Mateschitz has more than twice Bernie's net worth, and Dietrich doesn't have two socialite daughters living in Beverly Hills and picking his pockets, so the only need he could have of Bernie is those contractual assets.

How many times have Ferrari threatened to leave F1?...

Nonsequitir. Ferrari do not advertise, they only race F1. They only ever could leave F1 to create their own competing series. Red Bull do advertise, exhaustively, and they also are major sponsor in a couple dozen other racing series, title sponsor of several. Well more people at this moment have a Red Bull product in their home than a Ferrari product. F1 need Red Bull more than Red Bull need F1.

I see that Mr Horner is confident that the appeal will go in their favour.. that's confidence for you, or should that read arrogance.

You assume he took this decision on his own cognisance.

 

[RasputinLives]

Bernie would leave F1 if Red Bull do?

Oh dear. Not stopped laughing at that one. To think that the concerns of Red Bull even register in Bernies meglomaniac of a brain or that there exit or demise could even remotely effect his vast F1 empire is fairly silly.

Bernie will do what he always does if Red Bull leave and move himself on to the next cash cow. The casual viewer will barely notice whilst the rest of us will grumble for a bit then clap like seals at the next fish thrown our way.

He did not mourn the loss of BMW, Toyota, Honda, Lotus et all so why on earth should he leave if Red Bull do.

 

[Jen]

Perhaps BE knows he will have to leave at some point soon and is looking for a convenient excuse!

 

[ZakspeedYakspeed]

teabagyokel has explained the point so many times but some people simply choose to ignore. The point for the nth time is really not about the reliability of the sensors but Redbull's flippant disregard for FIA advice. The issue of technical directives is a collaborative approach that works well and allows the FIA to police the regulations without always having to drag the teams to court and vice versa. Redbull are now saying that because TD is an opinion and not part of the regulations, they did not have to follow it. What kind of message does this send out to the rest of the paddock? Like the RRA, Horner et al have taken it upon themselves to interpret the rules how they see fit, and the soundbites coming out of the paddock suggest there's a lot of irritation towards their actions.

It is about the reliability of the sensor (which in turn will be used to establish credibility ... or discount credibility) ... and then it moves onto "we told you not to dial it back" vs "why ... our readings do not show we are exceeding the reg's" ... and then it will be see the initial point about credibility ...

If the FIA have a pair ... then the ruling might shake down as "we know the component is faulty ... we know you have proved that your readings were in line with the reg's ... we know it cost you a podium, points and momentum ... we know that the other teams just sucked it up and did what we asked of them ... we know that some teams gained advantages and some teams were disadvantaged, but WE ARE IN CHARGE HERE NOT YOU ... so their ... appeal DENIED <stamps feet does best Southpark Cartman impersonation>" ...

It all goes back to the FIA not being competent enough to be able to provide a piece of kit that they mandated to work like it should ...

All the "fear mongering" that if RBR wins this appeal the sky will fall in ... F1 is doomed ...we have all seen it, done it ... got the t-shirt ...

Here's hoping that the sensors are more closely calibrated and perform as they should this weekend at Sepang ...

 

[Road of Bones]

http://sniffpetrol.com/2014/03/24/red-bull-apologises-for-mark-spec-part/

 

[Quintessentially]

ZakspeedYakspeed
The sensors were not magically sourced by FIA and forcibly planted on the cars. The whole design of the device and the subsequent modification to the mounting requirements were undertaken with direct input from the teams right from testing to the first race. The accuracy levels are also well within those prescribed by the FIA despite the relative newness of ultrasonic fuel meters. Gill Sensors and Autosport highlighted a number of issues which can affect their effectiveness such as extreme temperature levels, fuel contamination from air bubbles, fuel pressure drop etc, but not to the extent of the device providing readings beyond the range required by the FIA. It is an open secret that Newey likes to package his cars tightly and Redbull had countless issues with cooling during testing so to see them scream the loudest about the sensors should not be unexpected.

The sensor as stated in TR 5.10.3 (Note: Not TD) must be homologated and remains the primary means of measuring fuel flow. Whatever alternative means Redbull used to prove the device’s ineffectiveness or compliance with the Regulations was certainly not homologated and neither were the readings supplied by telemetry during the race as mandated by FIA so Redbull are on thin ground here. As others have already mentioned, it would be very disappointing if they are not given a heavy fine for wasting everyone’s time.

 

[Blog Zbod]

AMuS's Michael Schmidt wrote today that no other team was directed to run an FMFS "offset" of greater than 1.5% at Melbourne. RBR were told to run 4%, and we still don't know that would have provided an adequate buffer. But 4% demonstrates that Ricciardo's FMFS was operating at a considerably greater error rate than any other driver's. Which refutes claims the sensor error was the same for everyone, or that there was anything equitable about the FIA's fudge factor. Not to mention the fudge factor made no pretense of correcting the erroneous measurement, it only ever was intended to prevent that device's reading exceeding 100kg/hr.

Schmidt also notes that being limited to 96kg/hr would have cost Ricciardo on the order of 7-8 PS (6.7-7.9 bhp) peak output.