The curious case of Red Bull's place in F1 history

Formula 1 isn’t a place, primarily, to make friends. Not in the ‘Piranha Club’. Winning trumps all. Because success means money. Desire. Design beauty. Thrill-seeking. It’s all intrinsically linked to driving the ruthless, processional circle of success, silverware and cash.

That’s on the inside. For most on the outside, something softer, more subjective pervades. F1 represents escapism, youth, family and fond memories, joyful obsession. These days, once a year, it’s another streaming binge.

And so, where the relentless ruthlessness meets the passion, we get considerations (and column inches) on both lofty and low-blow aspirations. Who is the best? The worst? The most loved?

Enter Red Bull: the latest member of F1’s 100 wins club.

Ferrari, McLaren, Williams and Mercedes are the other members – all with many more victories too, with Williams ahead of Red Bull on 114 and Ferrari topping the pile with 242.

Famed marques, motorsport legends all. A certain fondness for these teams remains even as they struggle on in the current era. Sebastian Vettel once said, “everybody’s a Ferrari fan” and new Williams team principal James Vowles is openly trying to use residual affection for his squad’s past to get rules changed and aid their long recovery path.

Red Bull. It’s all of that and more. It’s, as team boss Christian Horner puts it, “a subsidiary of an energy drink”. Therefore, any discussion of Red Bull’s place in F1 history can’t ignore that.

Red Bull’s F1 project started out as Dietrich Mateschitz indulging in his passion

The softer side of things is a good place to start. Red Bull’s F1 project started out as Dietrich Mateschitz indulging in his passion – he was a big fan of Jochen Rindt – first a backer to fellow Austrian Gerhard Berger and soon a team sponsor. By 2005 it was as a team owner. A tantalising dream for many fans, the reality for those few who can afford it.

But the ruthlessness pre-requisite in motorsport is intertwined in the Red Bull tale. Its Sauber relationship spoiled because the team picked Kimi Raikkonen over Red Bull junior Enrique Bernoldi for 2001.

The ailing Jaguar and soon Minardi squads were within its grasp by 2006 – as Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso. In five years, the main team was world champion – one year after clinching the first win that started the path to 100: China 2009.

"For a fizzy drinks manufacturer, we’ve gone on to achieve a pretty decent amount of success" Christian Horner

In Vettel’s first race-winning season for Red Bull, friction abounded from long-established squads regarding the newcomer now impinging on their territory.

“For a fizzy drinks manufacturer, we’ve gone on to achieve a pretty decent amount of success,” Horner reflects now of that period in an exclusive interview with Autosport. “And obviously that was uncomfortable when automotive manufacturers were trying sell cars – how do you justify that?”

In 2010, the operation that, after the wet 1-2 in Shanghai Autosport had called “a small underdog team” in our April 2009 edition, was under regular attack.

From its rivals this then concerned its ride height and bodywork, with innovations such as its exhaust blowing tricks also under regular FIA scrutiny. Plus, there were the changes to ban the customer car arrangement Red Bull and Toro Rosso had been utilising.

Red Bull became world champion one year after clinching the first win that started the path to 100: China 2009

Photo by: Edd Hartley

“Just noise,” according to Horner, “And you know when others are moaning that you’re doing something right.”

But the team quickly went from new kid on the block to people tired of Vettel’s finger wagging after each pole and win – the German racking up 45 and 39 of each in six years at Red Bull. Even in his pre-Ferrari days already enough to head Jim Clark and Alain Prost (33 poles each) and Nigel Mansell (31 victories) in respective parts of F1’s history books.

This reaction was odd in the UK – few could surely have watched his interview on BBC’s Top Gear and not be charmed by this clear anglophile, all youth and exuberance. Was it a hangover from the days of Michael Schumacher vs ‘our Damon’ Hill? Perhaps in the tabloids. But his was a team based in Milton Keynes, providing a massive part of the flourishing UK ‘motorsport valley’.

The overwhelming theory is that people fast grow tired of domination in any sport. In F1, the typical periods of one team winning means its success becomes uber-concentrated. There aren’t 36 other games to play not against Manchester City. There’s no driver draft to try and spread glory around a la the major US sports.

Such amassed success never gets old for a team’s fans. It breeds frenzy and devotion. Partisan camps are the norm in the social media age, but they existed back when Red Bull started winning too. And those suggestions of technical impropriety were picked up on by non-Red Bull fans.

“So long as we’re happy with the legality of our car, and it’s passing scrutineering and so on, then it just shows that you’re doing something right,” Horner emphasises again.

The popularity of an underdog story endures. But Red Bull very quickly after China 2009 was not that.

Red Bull very quickly after China 2009 stopped being the underdog, claiming both titles in 2010

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

In addition to its on-track successes, it increased in staff size massively and gathered political clout. But Horner gives short shrift to suggestions owning two teams, and with the potential to pull them out at its whims, gave Red Bull added manoeuvrability in rules and financial discussions.

“The engine supply [teams/manufacturers] seemed to have far more sway over the voting structure within meetings than two teams having common ownership,” he claims.

“Politically it didn’t give us any particular advantage. I think that if anything we always felt we were at a disadvantage to the multiple teams that were supplied and the influence an engine manufacturer would have potentially on those teams.”

"Bernie viewed it that as far as he was concerned as a promoter, Ferrari were the Rolling Stones and Red Bull were the best support act that you could possibly have" Christian Horner

Instead, Horner suggests Red Bull’s financial worth to F1 was recognised by the championship’s former supremo Bernie Ecclestone.

This did give Red Bull significant power and it became a major player in the various political dramas of an era ago – the 2009 FIA-FOTA war, the failed Resource Restriction Agreement, the change of engine regulations for 2014 – all of which, naturally, whipped up storms and bred resentment in some quarters.

“Bernie viewed it that as far as he was concerned as a promoter, Ferrari were the Rolling Stones and Red Bull were the best support act that you could possibly have,” says Horner. “To the point that the support act was becoming bigger than the main act in his mind because of the marketing drive that Red Bull brought to Formula 1.

“[That was] all the running show cars, all the marketing support, the way we took Formula 1 to the people and ran cars with celebrities in, or up mountains, or in cities where you wouldn’t expect to see Formula 1. So, I think he saw the value or what Red Bull bought to Formula 1 and that also caused issues with some of the other teams, as you can imagine.”

Mercedes’ engine might meant Red Bull was replaced as F1’s dominator from 2014

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

In 2014, Red Bull came crashing down to earth.

Mercedes’ engine might meant it was replaced as F1’s dominator. And while sporadic issues with Red Bull’s chassis design and wind tunnel played their part in the team’s fallow period to 2019, it was always clear where it was placing the blame: on its engine partner, Renault.

Red Bull had gone to great lengths to secure the French manufacturer's power during the team's rise up the F1 pecking order, but at the same time this meant rather brutally switching its deal to run Ferrari engines to Toro Rosso for 2007.

But even through its Vettel title years, as his team-mate Mark Webber tells Autosport, the Renault engine was “a pretty decent chunk” down on its Mercedes and Ferrari rivals.

Horner says this was because then Renault F1 team boss Flavio Briatore “made a mistake where he allowed a retune to come” of the then V8 engines while they were supposed to be frozen in development terms from 2006 into 2007.

But while Renault might not have extracted as much power as others during this time, its software was developed to help Red Bull’s chassis produce even more downforce than that packed on already by Adrian Newey and his team. The engine builder also did plenty of winning between 2009 and 2013, for which it felt it did not get enough credit.

When the 2014 situation occurred – for Horner because “there were several management changes and I just think there wasn’t enough focus then put onto the 2014 big regulation changes that Renault had been very much driving [for]” – the relationship broke down.

Red Bull tried and failed to secure alternative supplies from Mercedes and Ferrari in 2015

Photo by: Sutton Images

Red Bull tried and failed to secure alternative supplies from Mercedes and Ferrari in 2015, but in the end they had to go back to Renault and arrange a seemingly awkward rebadging exercise with sponsor Tag Heuer.

But as reliability issues mounted in 2017 and 2018, Red Bull finally opted to plunge down the Honda route it had already sent Toro Rosso exploring, for 2019. What a result that reached – now the class-leading hybrid engine and with renewed world title glory. How McLaren must look on in envy.

But to those on the outside, Red Bull’s engine saga meant a lot of very public complaining.

Then there’s its treatment of drivers. Some view it as overly harsh on very young talent. But this ignores the massive investment in the careers of so many stars that now have professional careers in F1 and other series, which may well have not survived without Red Bull’s attention.

Red Bull is a team that seems to foster the ‘us versus them’ mentality that has powered some of sport’s most brutally successful stars - think Michael Jordan or Tom Brady

It can be said that the team has often struggled to rein in the worst excesses of the stars of its junior programme – Vettel and Verstappen.

Webber’s ‘Aussie Grit’, “not bad for a number two driver”, attitude chimed with many fans that couldn’t understand why Vettel received team support after the Turkey 2010 crash and rather got away with ‘Multi-21-gate’ in 2013.

And of course there was Verstappen’s initial excesses of aggressive driving force and personality, much of which remains today. To many, Red Bull is now his team. This could be seen with its decision to support his Sky Sports F1 boycott in Mexico last year.

To many, Red Bull is now Verstappen's team

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Red Bull is a team that seems to foster the ‘us versus them’ mentality that has powered some of sport’s most brutally successful stars – think Michael Jordan or Tom Brady. Does Horner agree with that assessment?

“I think we’ve always had a maverick attitude,” he responds. “We’ve never been controlled. And we’ve never been afraid to express our opinion, and sometimes people like that opinion, sometimes people don’t. We don’t play games with the governing body. We’re a very straightforward race team. And we’ve always called it as it is.”

Horner is Red Bull too. He’s a CEO team principal – the first line of attack and defence in public, to allow his squad to concentrate on their specific jobs. Very few other team members speak to the media, which contrasts massively with how Red Bull’s great rival – Mercedes – operates.

Horner plays the PR game to its fullest, with regular slots on Sky and fully embracing the celebrity power wrought by the Drive to Survive popularity boom. His and Toto Wolff’s testy dynamics helped make the infamous 2021 campaign so compelling.

Often this means doing what is absolutely necessary, say, giving a battling, broiling press conference following Red Bull being handing its penalty for breaching the 2021 cost cap.

That is the second overwhelming blow against Red Bull’s broader appeal outside its existing fan base, let alone how Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton fans reacted to Verstappen’s controversial triumph in Abu Dhabi 2021.

But however anyone feels about Red Bull and its actions over the years, its successes just have to be respected.

Horner plays the PR game to its fullest, with regular slots on Sky

Photo by: Patrick Vinet / Motorsport Images

It’s done so much winning in such a short period of time – the quickest to 100 wins in terms of years, 14, only beaten in race-total terms by Mercedes (207 to 355). Its place towards the front of the sport provided its massive platform – it’s just, as Horner notes, this will bring detractors as well as supporters. That’s life.

The team’s small senior management structure has had much to do with its major success. For so many years, Helmut Marko was Mateschitz’s paddock embodiment – getting his views to Horner and F1’s key stakeholders quickly.

So long as Red Bull keeps winning, new Red Bull marketer-in-chief – Oliver Mintzlaff, handpicked by Mateschitz before his death last year – will have no need to make changes. That AlphaTauri has been much less successful of late is thought to be why stories emerged regarding its possible sale back in March.

Its place towards the front of the sport provided its massive platform – it’s just, as Horner notes, this will bring detractors as well as supporters

“I’ve always run the team as a team, not as some big corporate entity,” Horner explains. “You’ve got to keep that nimbleness, that ability to make decisions quickly and move quickly. And that’s been one of our strengths over the years – our agility to make decisions, to commit, to not be afraid of taking bold decisions. And thankfully a lot of them have paid off.”

But for all the discussion of negativity, Red Bull has been gaining popularity too. Horner claims “the team is probably the most followed team in Formula 1 – certainly in the US we’re the biggest single team”.

In the 2021 Motorsport Network Global Fan Survey, published pre-Abu Dhabi 2021 and the cost cap saga, it was noted “Red Bull continued its impressive record of improving popularity in every study since 2008” and “in 2021, RBR was ranked as the favourite team by nearly one in five of all F1 fans, up from 14% in 2017”.

So, is nuanced assessment of perceived Red Bull negativity the reserve of industry insiders or very impassioned followers?

The team’s small senior management structure has had much to do with its major success

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

“I think, particularly with a younger audience, sport can be polarising,” says Horner. “And your Red Bull fan is going to be probably a little different to a Mercedes fan. But that’s sport. A Man City fan is probably significantly different to an Arsenal fan.”

Webber has an interesting theory, saying, “if it was a manufacturer, it might get some more praise and notoriety”.

And this brings us back to the 100 club and those legendary motorsport marques. They are in part famous for building their cars and brands from the ground up. Success – unlike at the wider Red Bull group – coming on the track and road alone.

Well, becoming manufacturer in the more traditional sense is Red Bull’s next chapter, as it teams up with Ford for 2026 and making good on its own new Red Bull Powertrains division.

But don’t expect Red Bull to change – it’s still got a primary caffeine product to sell in shops around the world. It surely is going to be the “maverick” team still. And F1 is all the better for it given it adds a different dimension to discussions on F1 history – all the good and all the bad.

Red Bull has done so much winning in such a short period of time – the quickest to 100 victories in terms of years

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images