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]

Red Bull considering applying for planning permission to have enough room for their ever expanding trophy collection.

 

[FB]

Looks like Newey is in it for the long term at RB Racing as he appears to have more of a connection with the team than his previous employers.

"To leave for another team would be a little bit like walking out on my children."

He also explains the hole in the nose.

"The slot at the base of the ramp to the nose into the front bulkhead is simply driver cooling,"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/16929993

 

[Bill Boddy]

According to motorsport.com Red Bull will not be running their latest car at Melbourne. They will, instead, be running the chassis that they had prior to the final two days of testing. Since there is so little testing allowed it seems that they will have trouble using it all, they could try it on Fridays with one driver I suppose but that would mean a lot of disruption, maybe even causing problems with the drivers.

"Not bad for someone who only had free running with the crap car".

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/red-bull-may-revert-to-old-rb8-for-melbourne-report/

 

[Brogan]

Horner rules out Hamilton as a replacement for Webber (not going to say I told you so )

"I think that it's difficult to envisage Lewis in our team," Horner told the Daily Telegraph.

"I think he's comfortable in the environment he is in and we're certainly comfortable with the two drivers we have.

"We also took a decision to invest in youth and we have two really exciting youngsters entering grand prix racing in Jean-Eric Vergne and Daniel Ricciardo - both really talented drivers and both deserve that opportunity. So we're more likely to look inwardly than outwardly."

http://www1.skysports.com/formula-1/news/12433/7593426/

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Brownie points to Red Bull for wanting to make champions rather than buy champions.

 

[RasputinLives]

Brownie points to Red Bull for wanting to make champions rather than buy champions.

If Vettel hadn't been the success he is they would prob not have the same policy. They don't need a world beater at the moment - they have one - if they produce another one then the more the merrier but if these guys flop oh well nice try. Would have been a very different story if Vettel had turned out to pants - I'm pretty sure they'd have been flashing the cash to get themselves Lewis or Fernando.

As for the Hammy move. I was pretty sure at one point that the Red Bull brand couldn't resist linking up with the Hamilton brand but Lewis troubles on and off track last season have certainly put his stock down and Seb's utter domination and strange school boy charm have certainly put his stock up meaning Red Bull prob won't go over Horner's head with it now. Could all change though. Lets remember that the Red Bull name is in F1 for one reason only to associate its product with success and promote it around the world and if the guys at the head office decide Lewis Hamilton is the man to do that then I don't think it matters one fig what Christian Horner says.

 

[Marc]

So where are redbull in pecking order? Apparently yet to run a low fuel load, however had Vis flo on card in free practice. So what we think?

Personally I think they are still gonna be fast, but not as much of a gap. Pretty much similar to what others have predicted. However in the same respect Hamilton & Button (button especially) look very comfortable in that McLaren.

 

[Bill Boddy]

When other teams put Vis flo on during free practice it is usually regarded as a not very good sign. Since it is Red Bull it may be just that they are checking the calibration of their computer software.

 

[Brogan]

So where are redbull in pecking order?

You have your answer.
On one lap pace they appear to be fourth fastest.

The race is a different matter though so we'll have to wait a bit to find that out.

 

[Marc]

You have your answer.
On one lap pace they appear to be fourth fastest.

The race is a different matter though so we'll have to wait a bit to find that out.

Indeed. Webber has already said he had a KERS problem and is looking at podium. Certainly gonna be a good race tomorrow thats for sure.

 

[RasputinLives]

So Red Bull and Mclaren seem to have swapped round from last season with Mclaren looking dominant in quali but Red Bull pretty much keeping with em on race pace. Should be interesting to see the roles reversed

 

[Brogan]

Indeed.

I don't see the McLaren as having quite the same level of advantage as the Red Bull had though.

 

[RasputinLives]

No but you have to say they looked pretty good - the way Button pulled out 2 seconds on Vettel on the first lap after the safety car was pure role reversal

 

[Il_leone]

Brownie points to Red Bull for wanting to make champions rather than buy champions.

they did consider Fernando Alonso when he became available for 2008 like every other team because then Flavio would have simply shoved Webber to Renault to get Alonso into Red Bull if that was the case before Alonso chose Renault.

That is because Red Bull were only midfield then and still question mark and he was angling towards a Ferrari drive being his other option

Horner may say what he likes but in the past its proven to mean nothing when Helmut opens his mouth and if Hamilton was available

DO you think Red Bull would not want him to gain attention and success and rather he joins another team and stops them from having further success

 

[ExtremeNinja]

they did consider Fernando Alonso when he became available for 2008 like every other team because then Flavio would have simply shoved Webber to Renault to get Alonso into Red Bull if that was the case before Alonso chose Renault.

That is because Red Bull were only midfield then and still question mark and he was angling towards a Ferrari drive being his other option

Horner may say what he likes but in the past its proven to mean nothing when Helmut opens his mouth and if Hamilton was available

DO you think Red Bull would not want him to gain attention and success and rather he joins another team and stops them from having further success

...Alonso was a driver who had lost a lot of his stock at that time, due to some extremely unendearing behaviour in 2007. Whatever considerations were made the decisions went in a different way. I'm not going to speculate on what ifs and could have beens with nothing to go on but your insights.

I'll not be detracting my awarded brownie points based on your rebuke which you claim is "proven" so I'll leave my input on this where it was a week ago.

 

[KekeTheKing]

Just saw this quote. Apparently CH feels that RBR will be back on top soon.

"I think we underperformed rather than McLaren being overly strong and that is the story - we can prove it next time we race."

http://www.planetf1.com/driver/3213/7608508/-McLaren-didn-t-win-Red-Bull-lost-http://www.planetf1.com/driver/3213/7608508/-McLaren-didn-t-win-Red-Bull-lost-

 

[Galahad]

I think it was Ross Brawn who said that everyone had been waiting nervously for the new Red Bull package at the final test, but actually it didn't produce the results that they, or their rivals, had been expecting.

If that is the case, and Red Bull can find out where they went wrong (the exhaust set-up is a big part of the package, I believe) then Horner may be proved right.

 

[Bill Boddy]

Last week Horner said that Red Bull hadn't showed it's full speed in pre-season testing as they had always been running heavy on fuel. He went on to say that their speed would be seen when they did take the fuel out at the weekend. They did and it didn't.

Last weekend during free practice Red Bull were using flo Vis paint, together with what happened in qualy and the race, that he is making a prophecy which he cannot guarentee.

 

[teabagyokel]

They did show their speed and it just wasn't as fast. Live by the sword...

 

[Viscount]

http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/f1_media/Documents/aus-race-analysis.pdf

I had a look at the lap times found above and in the last stint at least after the safety car, the Red Bulls had similar pace to the McLarens. I calculated their average lap times for 15 laps of the last 16 (I excluded the final lap since some slow down past the pit lane). So the average lap times for laps 43 -57 were:


Button - 1:30.038
Vettel - 1:30.049
Hamilton - 30.117
Webber - 1:30.122