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.

 

[Il_leone]

Kewee That might be needed to bring him down to earth and then everyone will be saying the kid deserves some of it for all the petulance and dirty play he's been doing

 

[Viscount]

cider_and_toast I think it's a myth how much influence drivers have on car setup. Once upon a time drivers might have had the technical understanding and influence to set up a car, but with the complexity of today's cars and the sheer number of engineers employed by the team, it's just quality feedback (as well as the ability to drive consistently fast) that the driver needs to provide for the engineers to find the best setup.

 

[vintly]

Apart from Australia, when has Young Max shown his 'petulance'? Social media (and the BBC for that matter) went wild with 'crybaby Max' stories off the back of that, to the point where some seem to have decided that that's him in a nutshell. What have I missed, where are the other examples?

Do people forget that he's travelling around at 200mph, leading the the most glamorous and exotic of lives, yet still a teenager? I don't know about you but at 18 I wasn't anywhere near controlling and managing emotions in frustrating circumstances and I wasn't under quite the same pressure (zero by comparison). It's called youth, and we should allow for it. The time to come down on someone is when they fail to learn or to evolve, and continue to repeat mistakes. He ain't there yet.

Rant over. For now.

 

[Kewee]

Il_leone ..... Although I don't like arrogance as a personalty trait I can understand if the person has reached a high level through hard work, skill and experience, Verstappen still has a way to go before he's earned the right to behave the way he does. Maybe he's starting to believe all the praise that has been flowing his way. He'll come down to earth with a thud I'm guessing.

 

[Kewee]

vintly ..... I've never felt anyone should need to allow for youth to excuse behaviour and in particular arrogance. In New Zealand we follow our countries latest sporting success, her names Lydia Ko. She's broken every record you can think of in golf at a younger age than anyone before her. Won on the LPGA tour as a 15 year old, turned pro in 2014 and was a millionaire before the end of her first season. Was the world number one by 2015, lost her number one ranking after 20+ weeks, regained it at the end of 2015 and still holds the world number one ranking. Has won the CME race for the globe million dollar bonus two years in a row. Is now starting just her third season and has won two majors and has now won prize money approaching $6 million US, all before her 19th birthday. Even the mens game are acknowledging she one of the greatest players the games ever seen, men or women's. The point is obvious, arrogance doesn't have to go with extreme talent, Lydia is the sports darling, loved by her fellow competitors and everyone else who has contact with her simply because she still a young girl who loves playing golf for the fun and pleasure she gets from it. Watching her defend her NZ Open title, giving the little kids that were following her high fives between holes was wonderful. Along with all the fun with the kids she still found what she needed to win. Many could take a lesson in behaviour by watching her.

 

[vintly]

Kewee, she sounds fantastic, good on her.

Any other examples of Verstappen showing behaviour like that in Oz?

 

[Il_leone]

vintly You are not hearing about it because it is being kept behind the garage doors but there were times last year when Max was just complaining about the car's not working and DC pointed out " Its no good just moaning at your engineers they want quality feedback why "

I guess you did not see the Singapore Grand Prix last year then when Max just told the team "No" to moving over.

The Toro Rosso team apparently there is a lot of infighting amongst the engineers of the two drivers and even the dad's are involved ... it is one of the reasons they think it would be better off for the team to move Max Verstappen out of that team

 

[Il_leone]

 

[Bill Boddy]

Why should Verstappen give way to Sainz? It's up to Sainz to overtake, if he can't then he should back off.

 

[Il_leone]

Apparently the team had some form of team strategy planned and felt that Sainz was in a better position to attack Perez on newer tyres in Singapore

Well Max got a taste of his own medicine in Melbourne this year and nearly ended up taking out himself and his own teammate in frustration

---- --

So far Sainz has remained quiet calm when faced with the situation whilst Max is more likely to do a stupid move and take himself and his teammate out

 

[cider_and_toast]

Viscount I still think the driver has to be able to convince the team to set the car up to his way of driving as well as what would be considered for optimum performance. To do that takes experience and the ability for the driver to provide accurate feedback. Maybe you are correct that computers and teams of engineers have reduced the drivers input but if the system was fool proof we wouldn't hear drivers say they are struggling to get heat into the front tyres or find the right balance. I'm certain a number of newer drivers careers have suffered because they haven't had the clout to get their point across. The computer isn't always right. Verstappen has to get to grips with his new car and team in the space of a day and a half before taking it out to qualify.

 

[Viscount]

Good points cider_and_toast have to agree with you there.

Out of interest, how close do you think he'll be to Ricciardo in Spain?

 

[Il_leone]

cider_and_toast That's a skill he ought to develop

 

[Il_leone]

Max is playing down expectations saying he is not under extra pressure

 

[vintly]

This all raises another point (that I may have mentioned elsewhere, if so apologies for the repetition). Do we want to see nice guys respecting each other and setting a good example, all of the time, without exception, regardless of age or experience, or do we want to see a mixture of contrasting personalities, clashing at times and showing their dark sides on occasion.

If they were coming round for tea I'd prefer the former, but as protagonists in a sporting arena then there's no doubt that the latter is more interesting. I can't think of anything worse than everyone setting a good example all the time. Of course it's great when sportsmen and women set great examples (top tier of men's tennis springs to mind, awesome), but god help us if everyone was like that.

I do remember those events you mentioned Kewee, although didn't really see it that way. Happy to agree to disagree.

 

[Kewee]

vintly ...... I didn't mention any events vintly, I think your last sentence must have been aimed at someone else.

 

[RasputinLives]

I Don't know if Max is 'arrogant' or a 'cry baby'. I know a lot about his Dad though and Jos would certainly fit this descriptions as well as some other choice ones. That doesn't mean Max is like that of course. I am fed up with seeing Jos hanging about though like he was a once great F1 driver when he certainly was not.

I think Max is going to attract a lot of people who dislike him purely as a backlash to the constant PR and media love in around him. David Croft pretty much wants to have his babies. It doesn't mean people Don't see him as a great talent but just get tired of constantly being told that and starting hoping he fails just so they Don't have to hear about it anymore.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Which kind of reminds you of the debut season of a certain, now three time, world champion in 2007.

 

[Kewee]

I Don't know if Max is 'arrogant' or a 'cry baby'.

I think both Ras. I've never made a secret of my dislike of arrogance, in a rookie its even more distasteful. In saying that there's a fine line between being supremely confident and arrogant. The two can be separated by a persons personality. As an example I've never considered Hamilton arrogant.

 

[teabagyokel]

cider_and_toast - And the deferred debut of a four-time World Champion in the same season.

It takes an arrogant git to assume he can brake later than everyone, regardless of how good the opponent's car is.

It takes an arrogant git to push it that little bit harder, to assume he will be able to keep hold of it a little faster.

A top quality sportsman is necessarily arrogant. Whether it manifests as a Federer humblebrag, an Ali announcement of greatness or a Ronaldo strut, internally it will be there.

In Grand Prix motor-racing it is very necessary to be the top dog to be arrogant. Barrichello? Coulthard? Massa? Berger? No.
Senna. Schumacher. Prost. Piquet. Alonso. Hamilton. Vettel. Too right.

Sainz hasn't been bad, but Verstappen has the results when the chips are down. Yes, he's arrogant. But is he a probable top-level Grand Prix driver? Yes.

They should have done the swap at the start of the season, of course. It's harsh on Kvyat, possibly. However, the question is surely not why, but when.