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.

 

[P1]

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.

Probably because he doesn't want to lay people off. He's just defending his employees. It's hard to be objective, when the right outcome requires downsizing your organization, and also maybe reducing the separation between your team and others which is used to justify advertising premiums.

 

[P1]

I would like to see customer cars under certain conditions.

I agree.

 

[siffert_fan]

It was customer cars/engines that gave rise to a vast number of teams in F1. Lotus, Brabham, Eagle, McLaren, March, Hesketh, Tyrrell, Matra, Hill, Surtees etc all owed their existence to the availability of customer engines, either Coventry-Climax or Cosworth. Rob Walker, Williams and others were, at least initially, totally dependent upon both customer engines and cars.

How quickly history is forgotten!

 

[Bill Boddy]

Coventry Climax and Cosworth were relatively simple engines. The current engines are many times as complicated in order to pretend to be green, something which I think is unnecessary considering how few of them there are compared to the number of cars on the roads. Come to think of it the wings are overcomplicated as well, simplifying them would save hundreds of millions of ££££.

 

[Il_leone]

Customer cars/ engines use to exist but the bigger teams will always dominate because of their resources. So if you want customer cars then it is always going to be the big teams that can provide them. It also means they will always stay in front and you get the schewed performance where the bigger teams get better and the teams at the back can't move forward

Williams and FOrce India don't like it because it means it will push them further down the grid and they can use the fact they spent a lot of money to design their own chassis whereas a customer can spend a fraction of this and be competitive

That is why they made Toro Rosso designed their own chassis because everyone can see it was essentially a Red Bull chassis which was one of the best.


Yes the belated ruling screwed up Prodrive who had everything ready to go for 2008 and then belatedly they were told they can't enter

 

[siffert_fan]

Today's system means that the big teams will always dominate too, so what is the difference?

There are, IMO, two huge differences between now and the Cosworth era:
1. Budgets are now HUGE, basically doing justice to a weapons program
2. The WDC is essentially meaningless today. All it shows is which of two teammates was best. What satisfaction can a driver derive from that?

Personally, I much preferred the era of nearly-spec engines (Cosworth with Hewland gearbox) as it allowed more freedom in chassis design and the driver was a MUCH bigger part of the equation.

 

[Il_leone]

I guess you could say in the Red Bull dominated era the other teams had a chance to beat them whereas now Mercedes especially have monopolised the situation because they made best use of the power train. It should be said Renault wanted the powertrains as well and have not done as well

Your second point about WDC is meaningless ..at least Mercs allowed their two drivers to fight which is not something Red Bull could not manage

 

[P1]

Coventry Climax and Cosworth were relatively simple engines. The current engines are many times as complicated in order to pretend to be green, something which I think is unnecessary considering how few of them there are compared to the number of cars on the roads. Come to think of it the wings are overcomplicated as well, simplifying them would save hundreds of millions of ££££.

That perspective is out of touch with what viewers want.

From the F1 Fan survey:

Do you think it's important that Formula 1 is at the cutting edge of technology?

Yes 90.1%
No 7.6%
No opinion 2.2%

Oh and since you seem to like no-name engine manufacturers and independent chassis makers, it's worth reminding you of this one too:

Do you think F1 benefits from having car manufacturers competing in the sport?

Yes 88.4%
No 6.4%
No opinion 5.2%

 

[Bill Boddy]

Just how many car manufacturers are there currently in F1?

Another place where I disagree with the majority of fans is:

"Would you favour slowing outright performance of F1 cars down to promote better racing?

Yes 21.3%

No 69.1%"

That could be done purely on the wings. If all that the fans want is to see high technology cars going at the maximum possible speed I would recommend Santa Pod.

 

[Titch]

I thought most FANS wanted to see racing.

 

[siffert_fan]

I would bet that virtually nobody could tell if the car zipping by the grandstand was going 180mph or "merely" 170. As long as the racing closer, IMO it would be a huge net gain.

As for F1 being "cutting edge"; historically that hasn't been the case. Everything from disc brakes thru aerodynamic downforce, semi-automatic gearboxes and hybrid engines were all in sports cars first.

 

[rufus_mcdufus]

According to multiple journalists RBR's engine deal with Renault should be confirmed tomorrow (RBR hinted the engine might be branded Tag-Heuer!) and Toro Rosso will confirm a deal for Ferrari engines.

 

[Bill Boddy]

Was that before or after Renault confirmed that they would take over Lotus?

 

[Il_leone]

Red Bull to race on with new Renault engine deal

Red Bull Tag Heuer because Tag Heuer were part of LVMH and separated from Tag Group

Toro Rosso: Red Bull junior team to have Ferrari power in 2016

Toro Rosso Ferrari

It would be interesting to see how Red Bull react if the junior team beat them again using a Ferrari engine whilst they use Renault like in 2008

 

[cider_and_toast]

TR will get nowhere near RBR if they are running around with a 2015 spec engine in the back. This could have a knock on effect on Sainz and Verstappen who may not look as impressive next year. There is a possibility they could be doing the same pace as a 2016 spec Manor and may well also be behind the new Haas team and their 2016 Spec Ferrari engine.

 

[Il_leone]

So this is what Christian Horner meant by Ron Dennis won't be happy that Red Bull will be running Tag Engines and not Honda engines

A kick in the bulls for Ron is Tag engines were to win races again.

Would the victories count towards Tag engines so to speak or Renault engines?

 

[rufus_mcdufus]

It's not really the same TAG of old. The company split into two - TAG make mainly aircraft parts now, TAG-Heuer watches.

 

[Il_leone]

rufus_mcdufus yes I know but it rubs salt into the wounds of Ron Dennis that one of the teams main sponsor decides to jump to a rival and brand itself because it does not want to be associated with a loser like Ron

 

[Spinodontosaurus]

TR will get nowhere near RBR if they are running around with a 2015 spec engine in the back.

This years Ferrari engine is superb, whilst this year Toro Rosso has what is arguably the 3rd strongest chassis on the grid. Even with a year-old engine they could spring some real giant-killing performances next season so long as they don't completely drop the ball in the chassis department.

 

[FB]

This is quite interesting: Red Bull-Lamborghini In 2017?

Although the sentence "Market research has recently confirmed once again the significance of F1." does annoy me. Why can't the management of companies do these things just on gut instinct anymore? Oh, and by the way Senior Engineer, look very carefully at how well things have gone at Honda with their return to F1.