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.

 

[Greenlantern101]

Red Bull could swap Verstappen-Kvyat as early as Spanish GP

Jings

 

[Olivier]

I feel sorry for Kvyat. One mistake and you're out. Granted this is RedBull culture, swim or sink, but still ...

 

[vintly]

It would be madness to switch drivers using Kvyat's performance in Russia as a reason. What happens if Verstappen has a howler next race? Switch them back??

Young Max made a massive mistake at Monaco last year, he may be the better prospect but rushing into it would be foolish I think.

I reckon Kvyat will be staying put for now, or I'll eat my hat.*


*Googles 'chocolate hat'.

 

[RasputinLives]

Nah if Verstappen has a howler it will be someone else's fault and the media would be to busy orgasming over his PR to notice.

 

[cider_and_toast]

I think Red Bull painted themselves into a corner with Kvyat and JEV. It was obvious for quite a while that they didnrate JEV and people would have been asking a lot of questions about the worth of the Red Bull junior program if neither driver had been promoted when the vacancy arrived. Now in Sainz and Verstappen they have two drivers of great potential and nowhere for them to go. Woops.

 

[Titch]

Kvyat isn't the first young driver to crash a lot in his early years. Grosjean is one who springs to mind. But he's now an asset to his team.
When did teams start chucking out young drivers for excessive enthusiasm.

 

[Incubus]

There is another issue here.

Would this be the first time a Red Bull driver gets "demoted" to the Torro Ross "junior" team? I think it would be but if it did come to pass Red Bull presumably wouldn't have to pay Kvyat any contract severance compensation seeing as though in business parlance he'd simply be "transferred to another department" within the ranks of the same employer.

Something about this just doesn't sit well... I never liked this Red Bull set-up of a "main" and "junior" team. Always came across to me as a way for a team to have four different cars per team on the grid when the rules only allow for two. They might be two different cars but the collaboration between the two go way beyond the cars they produce and I always found it totally baffling that no-one seems to have a problem with that...

 

[Titch]

I agree.

 

[Viscount]

Could be completely wrong, but I thought I read somewhere last year that Verstappen's Red Bull contract ends half way through this year, so could be their plan to promote him early to prevent any other teams signing him for next year.

 

[F1Brits_90]

Yeah just read the big story broke by jon noble about a possible A seat swap between Kvyat & Verstappen as early as the next race in Spain after ‘disaster’ in Russia. I know Helmut Marko is ruthless just ask Buemi & Alguesari but it would be too harsh on kyvat because he did great in China. You be hard pressed to find a driver on the grid that hasn't made at least 1 stupid mistake at some point & i think it could be too early for max but hrs proved me wrong before

 

[RasputinLives]

Kvyat isn't the first young driver to crash a lot in his early years.

Kvyat has a pretty dam good record of not crashing. Don't let the current media stuff change that fact.

 

[Il_leone]

Well lets throw Max at the deep end and lets hope Ricciardo will show him some manners or too so he can learn to shut up and drive

So its ironic that Kyvat's predecessor is the one who got him demoted from the main team. I wonder what Vettel will say if ever comes to blows with Verstappen ?

 

[Il_leone]

Kyvat got promoted to Red Bull far too soon and just as they were on the decline as well and to further compromise his development Marko goes and signs someone even younger who just happens to be able to thrive in a decent car whilst his was a bit of a pig

 

[TR]

Well dang:

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/red-bull-confirms-verstappen-kvyat-swap-for-spain-733539/

I think what we see here is Red Bull using the Sochi incident to do what they were planning on the mid-term anyway. This way they avoid the potential PR nightmare of dropping Kvyat after a strong season, while at the same time preempting other teams trying to poach Verstappen.

(Still not sure if this is such a wise move, but I understand the PR logic.)

 

[Kewee]

When did teams start chucking out young drivers for excessive enthusiasm.

Now it appears, unfortunately.

 

[FB]

Brutal on the part of Red Bull but, let's be honest, Kvyat didn't have the potential to be a champion where as Ricciardo and Verstappen do.

 

[The Artist.....]

Once again, these shenanigans just demonstrate why a lot of people struggle to like Red Bull. They have a history of doing this (Liuzzi, Speed, Bourdais, etc), so it's hardly surprising!

I am also uncomfortable with the idea that drivers can just be transferred from one team to another; the teams are supposed to be separate entities!

 

[TR]

I am also uncomfortable with the idea that drivers can just be transferred from one team to another; the teams are supposed to be separate entities!

It is not like drivers haven't switched teams mid-season in the past. The only difference here is that both teams share their main sponsor. (Most likely the drivers are technically employed by the sponsor (red bull) and not the teams (RBR and TR))

 

[The Artist.....]

TR

If drivers can be swapped, there's nothing to stop other personnel being swapped.

If other personnel can be swapped, there's nothing to stop intellectual property being swapped.

At that point, you have to ask if the teams are genuinely following the rules of needing to be a designer/manufacturer.

The Red Bull model of having "Red Bull technologies" independently (don't make me laugh) designing the cars for the two teams is a simple way of breaching the spending rules on development.

People have criticised Ferrari for allegedly using Haas for development time, but this is what Red Bull/Toro Rosso have been doing for years!

 

[TR]

TR

If drivers can be swapped, there's nothing to stop other personnel being swapped.

No, there are specific rules about other personnel being swapped. (As was further clarified after Mercedes inquired after the ongoings between Ferrari and Haas).

There is a long history in formula 1 of drivers switching teams mid-season. This mostly involves test drivers taking up racing positions at a different team (e.g. Vettel moving from BMW Sauber to Toro Rosso in 2007). However, there are also cases of drivers moving from racing seat to racing seat. Notably, Frentzen and Alesi switched seats between Jordan and Prost in 2000. In 1995 Johnny Herbert raced for three separate teams.


Driver and car always have been treat as separate entities, for example points earned while driving at different teams count towards a drivers position in the driver's championship.