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]

As ever Christian Horner talks BS. Red Bull did not have the balls to tell Max that they would have gone for Sainz or Ricciardo at the time so we're left with Gasly.

They are in denial that protecting Max's ego is the cause of the problem

 

[FB]

But it's also about being ready for that pressure and scrutiny. People mature at different ages.

 

[Andyoak]

That will always be Red Bull's weakness while they always want youth drivers to match their image.

 

[Il_leone]

You can understand if there is a pool of talented drivers to pick from and promote but Red Bull snookered themselves with the drivers they had available

Left with Gasly or Hartley... it was not a hard choice to select but they could have easily gone for someone outside Toro Rosso and who is established driver like Hulkbenberg for instance

 

[F1Brits_90]

But it's also about being ready for that pressure and scrutiny. People mature at different ages.

i agree with that because not everyone is going to be vettel & verstappen. sainz is in his 6th season driving at his best he has & you would say lewis's greatest season was 2018 at 33

but in sport you will always have pressure. you cant just wait as sometimes you dont get a 2nd shot at it. look at kyvat

 

[RasputinLives]

F1Brits_90 what that is code for is that they listened to the media too much rather than made their own mind up. Gasly started slowly but the media were wanting to replace him before the season has even started and Red Bull didn't even have the guts to back him for an entire season. It would have made no difference to their championship to give him that time.

 

[Angel]

Maybe Gasly just couldn't take the added pressure at Red Bull, some drivers seem to struggle under that kind of intense pressure. It could just be he's happier at a team with less intensity about them.

 

[RasputinLives]

How can you cope with the pressure when your team doesn't back you? Let's face it sometimes when they did those pointless interviews with Horner mid race he almost didn't remember he was racing.

 

[Angel]

That is true RasputinLives, maybe it was more he felt 'unloved' so to speak at Red Bull, whatever the cause he didn't drive as well there as he is at Toro Rosso.

 

[Il_leone]

RasputinLives Its a funny thing for Horner to say the media were the reason that Gasly got dropped. No one put a gun to Helmut or his head to drop Gasly.

The only person feeling worse than Gasly must be Kyvat within the Red Bull camp

 

[F1Brits_90]

How can you cope with the pressure when your team doesn't back you? Let's face it sometimes when they did those pointless interviews with Horner mid race he almost didn't remember he was racing.

That is true RasputinLives, maybe it was more he felt 'unloved' so to speak at Red Bull, whatever the cause he didn't drive as well there as he is at Toro Rosso.

right I was not going to say this because I thought its too insensitive but then why change now

this is elite sport. as mentioned before. if cant handle the heat get out the kitchen, as we know there huge queue of people that would love to take his seat. its human nature that when max Verstappen is doing what he is doing like finishing on the winning/ being on podium. lapping his teammate 3 times in Austraila Austria & Hungary while his teammate his beaten by a toro rosso. that all the new parts are going to him. horner got enough things to do on a race weekends without having to check whether 1 of his drivers is loved. instead of moping about that horner doesn't care about him. you got to get stuck in. find way to get further. look at the data, ask what Verstappen might be doing that your not

 

[RasputinLives]

So I'm assuming F1Brits_90 you believe Albon should be dropped because he can't handle the pressure too?

 

[Angel]

Whilst I agree with you to a point F1Brits_90, sportsmen and women are humans too, they all have feelings and emotions that sometimes get the better of them. I hear what you are saying about at that level of the sport and so on, but demoralise a driver and then see what results you get from them, I guarantee they won't be good.

Ask anyone who does anything well and they will often tell you that a lot of how good they are comes from their own mental strength, confidence and attitude. If you don't believe you will do well, more often than not, you won't. If you don't feel comfortable in your surroundings, you won't be able to give your best. As an old example, HH Frentzen did really badly at Williams, he moved to Jordan and he was like a different driver again. At Williams he didn't feel comfortable and the team weren't able to make him happy/settled/confident enough to drive to the best of his ability. I remember reading how Patrick Head didn't believe in that sort of thing, which is his right of course. At Jordan they tended to coddle their drivers more. There he was much happier and his results in the car got much better too.

I'm not saying all the teams have to run around playing nursemaid to their drivers, it's just that some thrive better in different scenarios than others. Gasly didn't get on well at Red Bull for whatever reason, Albon seems better able to cope with the atmosphere there.

 

[F1Brits_90]

So I'm assuming F1Brits_90 you believe Albon should be dropped because he can't handle the pressure too?

we have to remember how inexperienced albon is we cant forget that he was racing a F2 car 12months ago. I said at the time that I wouldn't have promoted albon as believed it was too soon & I would've had Hulkenburg in that seat for 18 months to give the gasly & albon time to develop like sainz did

albon is doing an acceptable job at the moment because he is doing the bare minimum that red bull expects that is top 6 finish. if it wasn't for Hamilton banzai move in brazil he would've been in there 8 times out of 8, compared to gasly's 5 out of 12. & would've outscored Verstappen 79 Albon 68 (should be 83) compared Verstappen 178 Gasly 61. we cant say that red bull progressed that far because I mentioned while gasly was finishing 8th - 10th Verstappen was on the podium

 

[RasputinLives]

Well I wasn't going to say this but basically you are reciting what they are saying in the Motorsport media. The storyline was that Gasly wasn't going to be good enough before the story even started and that Albon was going to be a super talent at Red Bull before he'd even turned a wheel. That's what the press decided and then they make the results fit the story and sell it too people as truth. There is really no difference at all between Gasly's results and Albon's results in the Red Bull other than one is popular and one isn't.

Unfortunately that is the nature of F1 and the Motorsport press right now. It's not results it's PR.

 

[F1Brits_90]

RasputinLives all i did was looking on Wikipedia for cold hard facts of 2019 F1 season. with my work situation & catching up on tv, i dont have time to read the motorsport website as id like

cant deny that albon will have to improve his qualifying next season. but they are the facts he has done better than gasly he has done the bare minimum that red bull expects that gasly couldnt. there is no storyline only the 1 that drivers create if he had managed to finish 6th in every race he would still be there. if your getting lapped by your teammate once nevermind 3 times your place is going to under threat. brundle always say your giving pressure or taking pressure.

gasly is back doing well at toro rosso & get himself back into contention. but it very hard to get into a top tier team & just ask perez what happens when you dont deliver when given your chance

 

[RasputinLives]

Perez had a whole season.

 

[F1Brits_90]

Perez had a whole season.

but my point on that was he had 1 chance. he doesn't look like getting back

 

[RasputinLives]

My point is he didn't get given a chance. He came in as a number 2 driver in his second year and was given half a season before he dumped in the most public of ways. If you consider that a chance then it's probably you writing most of the autosport articles.

Name me another young driver that has been brought into a top team to back up it's star and was dropped half way through their first season? You'll struggle because it's not usually done. In fact mid-season dumpings were always very rare until people needed clicks on websites.

 

[F1Brits_90]

perez was very unlucky guy got in a big team at the wrong time. maybe looking that 8 race period between Britain & Japan where he was beaten every week gave them the excuse to shaft him because knowing now ron dennis wanted magnussen in that car but they couldn't get rid of button so perez had to go.

but like Kovalaien, Barrichello, Irvine, Frentzen, as well once youve failed at a big team. its very hard to get back in