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.

 

[Bill Boddy]

Verstappen will still need the car to win in, it is unlikely that he will have it this year and quite possibly not next year. Don't forget as well that Red Bull took Ricciardo from first to fourth with what was weird tactics. I'm not surprised that Ricciardo is asking what on earth happened.

Or maybe Red Bull intend to get Ricciardo into Raikkonen's seat next season and are just showing him the sort of cock-ups that Ferrari make.

 

[Il_leone]

Bill Boddy Spanish GP: Daniel Ricciardo bitter over Red Bull strategy

I thought this summed about Ricciardo's mood

I am sure he would have asked behind closed doors about the situation

 

[rufus_mcdufus]

The Renault engine upgrades look like they could be pretty significant though. Things could get a bit more interesting.

 

[Titch]

For the first time ever Ricciardo didn't have a huge smile on his face when he was interviewed. Red Bull have even broken his spirit.

 

[F1Brits_90]

Im not a big red bull fan, I think at times they can be like kids. Gloating when they were dominant tormenting Mercedes & Ferrari with the fizzy drink company quote & then when roles reversed they chucked the dummy out. & don't like how even though he's left vettel still has horner around his little finger

But I dont think thry can be blamed for what happened with riccardio. Because the funny thing from I understand red bull I believe actually favoured Ricciardo because everyone said this weekend the quickest way to the chequered flag was a 3 stopper. Because medium would be too slow & on the edge by closing laps even brundle highly doubted that max & Kimi would make the finish. hence why red bull & ferrari number 1 driver both were on the same 3 stop strategy. But either team underestimated the drop off from the medium tyre at the end of a stint on low fuel. so vettel & Ricciardo never closed as quickly as expected. So strangely the number 2 benefitted from teams hedging their bets on the "unfavourable" 2 stopper. I don't want to call it lucky. More fortunate that both number 2 beat both number 1's

 

[Il_leone]

In the euphoria I don't think anyone at Red Bull has actually credited Ricciardo for driving brilliantly and failed to apologise that the strategy did not work out and put him in a stupid position where he had to overtake 3 cars to win on a track which is very hard to overtake

I was thinking if back to Melbourne 2010 when Hamilton was asked to do a 2nd stop which meant he had to overtake Alonso, Massa , and Webber from 2nd position. Given that was changeable conditions it was a difficult one to call and Hamilton in hindsight could have made the call then

 

[RasputinLives]

One of the first things everyone's favourite tp Christian Horner said post race was what a brilliant race Riccardo had and the were sorry his strategy messed up.

I know the 'Red Bull are favouring Max' stories are bound to come but let's not whip them up too early eh?

Edit: also Marko was on the grid before the race saying how amazing Riccardo's pole lap was.

 

[teabagyokel]

He had the same strategy as Raikkonen. It was thus not theoretically the best.

 

[Incubus]

Now this is gonna be interesting. Renault are bringing forward the introduction of their new upgraded engine in time for Monaco.. But there are only enough spars for one engine per team...
Who will get the new engine at Red Bull?

Might be mostly academic as the new engine shouldn't make too much of a difference at Monaco but psychologically this could be one massive head-scratcher for th team...

 

[KekeTheKing]

It's probably been a while since teammates had different engine iterations at a meeting. But as you say, Monaco is probably the best circuit to introduce that dynamic into a partnership.

 

[vintly]

If that turns out to be the case they have to give it to Ricciardo, fair enough. But Young Max can't lose either way - if he manages to lap within 0.5 of Ric he's a star, if he doesn't then the upgrade is even better than expected.

 

[Titch]

It has to go to Ricciardo, surely. So far Max is a one race wonder, and 18 years old as well, what does he know of the the car that is now to be upgraded, Ricciardo is in the best position to evaluate the upgrades.

 

[F1Brits_90]

I believe it will be riccardio . Because riccardio is the no 1 driver & got unlucky with the favoured strategy

 

[Viscount]

If it does go to Ricciardo, hope there aren't any reliability issues with the new engine.

 

[Il_leone]

Daniil Kvyat hints at internal politics in Red Bull Formula 1 team

I think Kyvat will probably be lucky to finish the season with Toro Rosso given his admission and his state of mind

 

[F1Brits_90]

Daniil Kvyat hints at internal politics in Red Bull Formula 1 team

I think Kyvat will probably be lucky to finish the season with Toro Rosso given his admission and his state of mind

He really does need to sort his head out because in danger of outpaced by sainz as at 1 point in the race we had top 3 of riccardio verstappen sainz & kyvat was in 11th That the problem he's 21 & doesn't have the experience of a button or Hamilton to put things behind him

But at the moment red bull are alot like man city in football. Short term they can both appear amazing but long term I would send any of my hypothetical kids to either because success rate at the moment is minimal especially in f1 only Coulthard vettel & riccardio are a success but then Buemi Alguersuari Bourdais Speed Liuzzi Klien & Speed are in the graveyard

 

[RasputinLives]

Red Bull's problem is they have no one to replace Kvyat with at current. Gasly is quick but he's not won a single seater race since he was in the Euro Cup 2.0 series in 2013 and really needs to prove himself in GP2 this year if he wants in.

So it's Kvyat until the end of the year.....unless they poach Vandoorne from Mclaren. They have tried before on that front so we know Marko rates him.

 

[Il_leone]

Vandoorne I thought was quoted that his future lies with Mclaren...I'd very much doubt Ron Dennis would let him to go to Red Bull for a start

It is somewhat strange that Gasly is the one Red Bull want to promote next but he has not won a race for a while. It was interesting that Alex Lynn having realised that he was overlooked for Sainz and Verstappen decided he had to leave the Red Bull young driver programme and now has a good shot of getting himself a Williams drive for next year. Remember him and Gasly were teammates last year and were equal points and only separated by Lynn's two wins

 

[RasputinLives]

I think we've had this convo before. Lynn did not decide to leave the Red Bull junior system. He was dropped. Marko did not want him. Williams picked him up when he'd been booted.

Lynn is a very good driver at the front but has tendency to get into trouble when he's in the pack. Sainz and Verstappen were the better choices at the time, as was Gasly. Lynn came on a lot last year.

Can't see him in the Williams drive next year though I'm afraid.

 

[FB]

Please, please, please, anyone but Massa in a Williams next year year. I reckon Niki Lauda could be a better job.