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.

 

[teabagyokel]

They won 4 championship doubles. Think the management was OK.

 

[siffert_fan]

The "inter-team battle" was all in Webber's head.

The disparity in talent precluded a real battle.

Just as it is doing with Mercedes. But RB never had as great an equipment advantage as Merc has had for two years.

 

[Titch]

I'm not sure the disparity at Mercedes is as great as it was between Webber and Vettel. If Rosberg could loose the gremlins in his brain he'd be a more consistent driver.

 

[Il_leone]

well in Vettel's hands it appears to be at least 1 second a lap faster in clean air

But I do feel sometimes Webber did not help himself in dealing with the politics

-----------------------------

 

[P1]

Crunch time: Mat-shit-z had set a deadline of Abu Dhabi for an engine deal. That's this weekend, and so far no deal signed for either team.

Mateschitz losing patience with Red Bull F1 engine saga

Maybe they will have to have the drivers push the chassis over the start line to avoid paying penalties for not entering the championship next year.

 

[Il_leone]

this is getting ridiculous we're hearing one side saying they will be on the grid next season and now they say they may not be

 

[Greenlantern101]

Red Bull confirm they have signed an engine deal for 2016 season

“We’ve entered the world championship, we’ve signed a contract for an engine, but I can’t tell you what it’ll be or called at the moment,” team boss Christian Horner tells Sky Sports F1

So they have signed but can't tell us what it will be called.

Have you ever wanted to slap someone really hard in the face with a large fish.

 

[teabagyokel]

He's got a lot of credit in the bank for the comment about Jordan talking out of his arse.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Oh great, cue more waffle from Horner this weekend in one of the 227 times that either the BBC or SKY cut to him for his ever enlightening thoughts.

Well done Red Bull, you have an engine.

 

[Bill Boddy]

....Well done Red Bull, you have an engine.

There simply is no justice in this world.

 

[RasputinLives]

So a Renault engine rebadged then.

 

[P1]

It's interesting. This article and also the interview with Horner on Autosport allude to the notion that Red Bull will have the ability to develop the engine.

This could imply one of two things:

1) Renault has sold them the 2015 engine IP as a starting point for the development of a "Red Bull" engine which would be homologated as a 4th engine. The same idea Red Bull was discussing with Ferrari. Manufacturing would presumably be done by Mecachrome who has been manufacturing the Renault engines under license as well until now. So I don't think production capacity is a problem here, but I don't see how they can apply and get approved as a fourth engine supplier in just 2.5 months.

2) Red Bull is paying Renault extra money to employ Mario Ilien to accelerate the development of the engine that Renault and Red Bull will share. So still the same engine as Renault's works team, but with Red Bull putting money, resources and strategic input into the development as a true partner.

The fact that he says 2016 will be a transitional year leads me to think he is doing (1) but I find that option unlikely because I don't understand why Renault would allow that and I don't see how the FIA can approve it quickly.

 

[Greenlantern101]

Have you noticed that nobody has accused Red Bull of cheating this year...and that Adrian Newey hasn't been around.

1+1=3

 

[cider_and_toast]

No body accused Red Bull of cheating because they've had a shit season by their standards. No body cares if you are cheating and you are shit. It's only when you are cheating and you are good.

E.G. The Ferrari / Haas link was discussed in Autosport and Motorsport about 6 months ago saying it was a legal loophole. Ferrari were reasonably far off Mercedes for pace, nothing happened.

Ferrari have been improving steadily over the year, we come to a race that is at a track that has a "Ferrari World" next door and is a very lucrative market for Ferrari. Mercedes suddenly remember to ask the FIA to have a quick look at the Ferrari / Haas relationship. Well there's a funny thing.

 

[siffert_fan]

In all sports, cheating accusations frequently are the result of "sore loser syndrome". Whether the accusation comes from a team or an ardent fan, it comes down to someone fervently believing in the unbeatable skill and purity of their favourite so that the only way they could lose would be thru the opposition cheating.

 

[rufus_mcdufus]

I don't think Wollf had much choice bringing up the issue of Ferrari/Haas. I think they did geneuinely want to find out if they could use a partner team (as Toto says, probably Manor) in the same way. I don't think Mercedes were really out to accuse Ferrari of cheating. They'd have done so earlier if so.

 

[teabagyokel]

siffert_fan - Or poor strategy.

To the point they can be criticised both for homogenous strategy, then two weeks later for divergent strategy.

 

[Il_leone]

The only rule about Haas and Ferrari is Haas must have its own chassis designed so they both outsmarted everyone . I am sure if Red Bull suddenly found extra speed and it was copied by Renault for their own team we might have another row about the partnership of those two teams

 

[Bill Boddy]

It seems fair enough to me. One team works on one aspect of the car and uses wind tunnel A, another works on a second aspect and uses wind tunnel B, a third...well you get the drift.........

The only objection .I have that it is cheating, a car should be designed by a team, since there are no customer cars; if they can't do it they can't race. By the way, I would like to see customer cars under certain conditions.

 

[FB]

By the way, I would like to see customer cars under certain conditions.

F1 survived this way for many years, I really don't understand the reluctance to allow it again. It's even stranger that one person vehemently opposed is Frank Williams, who started in F1 with second hand cars.