TEEHONE/MOTORSPORT^ I
MAGESETHERI
NGTON/MOTORSPORTIMAGESHOW RED BULL CHANGED MOTORSPORT
20 AUTOSPORT.COM 25 JULY 2019BOOSTING THE PRESENT,
CREATING HISTORY
Right now, Red Bull is beating Ferrari on race pace and, with new
engine partner Honda, laying the foundations for what it hopes will
be a season-long fight against Mercedes in 2020. Quit threats never
seem too far away, but that ghost will never be laid to rest all the while
Red Bull’s involvement rests on the whim of one person.
Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz (right) should have F1 by the
cojones, with all he has given it. Which is some journey from being
as much of a dreamer as anybody who fancies owning an F1 team.
“What struck me immediately when meeting Dietrich was his
passion and enthusiasm for motorsport, and ambition and vision,”
remembers Horner, who is now 45. “Even at that stage it was clear
that he didn’t want to just take part.
“He was very keen to do things a bit differently, to take all of
Red Bull’s values into a Formula 1 team. Having been a shareholder
at Sauber and a sponsor previously, this for the first time was going
to be Red Bull’s own team in Formula 1.
“Even in those early days, what attracted me to the project more
than anything was his enthusiasm, his commitment, his infectious
motivation and belief.”
Since taking over Jaguar and entering F1 in 2005 – and finishing
fourth on its debut with Coulthard – Red Bull has established itself
as not only one of the most important players in F1 for more than a
decade, it has swiftly written itself into the annals of history.
Red Bull’s ‘main’ team had to wait until early 2009 for its first victory.That win, in the Chinese
Grand Prix, before it
had even adopted the
controversial double-
diffuser that shook up
the competitive order as
part of a raft of rule changes, was the first of 60 (and counting). The
tally puts Red Bull sixth in the all-time wins list, behind only Ferrari,
McLaren, Williams, Mercedes and Lotus. It is the same story in terms
of world championships, pole positions and podiums.
Even in races started – a key barometer of a team’s history in the
world championship, albeit one skewed slightly by the rise in number
of races a season these days – Red Bull stands impressively. Well over
a hundred teams have started a world championship grand prix, and
Red Bull sits just outside the top 10 in this list on 275 starts.
Another way to put it is that it managed what Jaguar – a manufacturer
steeped in motorsport history – utterly failed to achieve across five
disappointing and expensive seasons. Which is impressive considering
what Red Bull inherited when it took over: “Basically it was a mess.”
Fixing the Jaguar situation, coaxing Adrian Newey away from
McLaren and giving him the infrastructure he needed to make Red
Bull a winner in F1 took many years. Nobody could have predicted the
massive step that would be made in 2009, when Red Bull established
itself as Brawn’s biggest challenger – let alone the final jump to being
a world championship-winning team in 2010.
“As a team we were still obviously a bit unpolished in areas,” says
Horner. “Operationally there is a lot of difference between running
midfield and running at the front of the grid. Everything shows up
under the spotlight.
“We probably weren’t ready to win a world championship in 2009,
but by the time 2010 came along we were very much ready. It was a
question of evolution, being self-analytical, self-critical, again just
putting the right processes and procedures into place.
“We were up against massive competitors, McLaren at the time,
Ferrari, big teams. It just meant we had to raise our game in all areas.”Will Red Bull topple
Mercedes before
Ferrari does?First win came
with Vettel in
2009 Chinese GP