How Red Bull arrived in F1 as a "breath of fresh air" 20 years ago

The 12 months is 2004 and David Coulthard is in his ultimate season with McLaren. DC is aware of that his future won’t be with the Woking-based workforce and {that a} sure Juan Pablo Montoya is about to take his place. He has to search for different choices and attracts curiosity from Jaguar. The workforce with the deep-green livery has Mark Webber and Christian Klien as its drivers however considers Coulthard’s expertise as possibility to maneuver the operation ahead.

Along with supervisor Martin Brundle, Coulthard mentioned the professionals and cons of a possible change to Jaguar, however their conclusion is evident. “I made a decision that I’d not signal for Jaguar – I’d fairly give up Components 1 than signal with them,” Coulthard tells Autosport practically 20 years on.

Coulthard had no confidence in Jaguar and the workforce’s management, though an surprising lifeline comes from Crimson Bull. The vitality drink model had joined forces with a younger Christian Horner, who was making an attempt to make his method into Components 1.

“I began my very own workforce in what’s now Components 2 and competed towards Helmut Marko’s workforce,” Horner recollects on the Speaking Bull podcast. “In 2002, 2003 and 2004, I received the championship three years in a row and I used to be seeking to take that workforce into Components 1.

“Bernie Ecclestone was pushing me, saying: ‘We want new, younger blood in F1. I need to eliminate this man, Eddie Jordan, he’s driving me mad, so why don’t you purchase his workforce? I’ll aid you.’ I attempted to place a deal collectively, and on the identical time I used to be operating a Crimson Bull junior driver, Vitantonio Liuzzi, that Helmut Marko had positioned with me.

“The take care of the Jordan workforce turned increasingly sophisticated and, within the meantime, Crimson Bull acquired Jaguar in November 2004. Later that month, Helmut rang me up and stated: ‘Dietrich want to see you.’ So I went to Salzburg and Mateschitz advised me: ‘I need to change the administration, I’ve obtained massive ambitions with this workforce, and I am keen to take an opportunity on you.’ I used to be solely 31 years of age and didn’t have to consider it for too lengthy.”

Horner had beforehand loved success along with his Arden workforce in F3000, right here with Doornbos and Liuzzi

Photograph by: Sutton Photos

Certain sufficient, Horner took over as workforce boss and had additionally set his sights on Coulthard. “Christian got here in, however he nonetheless had to determine which door led to which division at Jaguar!” the Scot jokes. “I do not forget that the workforce needed me to signal earlier than going to the primary check. However I stated: ‘No, let me go to the check and let me uncover in regards to the workforce.’

“I knew a number of the folks as I labored with them at Paul Stewart Racing, however you want good management, you want funding and also you want people who make everybody consider that that is the proper path for you. That’s what I felt was missing. I went to the check and stated: ‘If I do job, you need to signal me. And should you do job, I need to be with you.’”

Secret dinner with Adrian Newey

Throughout that day, Coulthard had intensive conversations with Dietrich Mateschitz. “Dietrich got here to the check,” Coulthard recollects. “I sat with him and hung out to search out out what his imaginative and prescient for the game was. Clearly I knew that he’d been a part-owner of Sauber and he’d been a visual sponsor of that workforce for a very long time, so he wasn’t a beginner that all of the sudden arrived and had gone ‘Components 1 is the flavour of my month and let’s see what enjoyable we will have with this’. There was a long-term technique in place.”

What appealed much more was that Coulthard may get some freedom to form the technique. “You make selections primarily based on relationships and belief, and Dietrich by no means let me down in something he dedicated to,” he says.

“Within the early days I spent quite a lot of time straight with him in Salzburg on a Monday after a grand prix to debate the place we have been, what we wanted and what folks could be finest to serve the workforce. He didn’t at all times say sure, after all not, as a result of that’s not the sport. However on the issues that you just actually believed in, not primarily based on a PowerPoint presentation however primarily based on ardour and the assumption that this particular person will change the fortunes of the workforce, then 9 instances out of 10 he would go ‘OK, you might be empowered to assist and construct the workforce’.”

One of many folks to vary the fortunes of the workforce goes by the identify of Adrian Newey. The legendary designer was excessive on Horner’s want checklist, and Coulthard knew him effectively from their time at Williams and McLaren. “David labored even quicker than Tinder these days! The match was there very quickly,” Horner jokes. “He arrange a secret dinner at Bluebird in London with Adrian and his spouse – as a result of, in the long run, girls make all the selections – and that’s how we obtained to know one another.”

Coulthard’s present relationship with Newey helped appeal to the designer to Crimson Bull

Photograph by: DaimlerChrysler

That dinner led to a gathering with Mateschitz, and through that dialog, Newey was satisfied to affix the younger however bold challenge. On 8 November 2005, each events announce that probably the most sought-after males within the paddock was making the transfer to Crimson Bull Racing. “That was an important second for us,” says Horner. “Earlier than that, folks didn’t actually take us severely, and one of many primary objectives of a race weekend was to get into one of many Crimson Bull events. However when Adrian joined our workforce, that modified, and other people stopped seeing us as a celebration workforce.”

The magazines that have been banned by Ron Dennis

Particularly in its debut 12 months, Crimson Bull was identified for its events, one thing Coulthard jokingly takes credit score for: “That was primarily because of me! Nevertheless it was only a breath of contemporary air within the paddock. The paddock is a a lot friendlier place now than it was once. Crimson Bull has needed to tighten entry over time however, at first it was an open home, with lunches for media and so forth.

“After a time period it turned clear that different groups introduced in lower-level companions that they couldn’t cater for and ended up bringing them to Crimson Bull!” Horner too appears to be like again on these early days with a smile: “We have been just about the one workforce the place you didn’t want 200 passes simply to get by the entrance door!”

It was all very completely different to what Coulthard had beforehand been used to: “On the within, McLaren was a pleasant and open place as effectively. However on the outside it was type of limitations down and that was the best way Ron favored to manage info out of the workforce. I respect that as he was the boss, he was the proprietor. However the lasting legacy is that Crimson Bull did issues in a different way.”

This distinction is mirrored in an amusing anecdote about magazines that Crimson Bull printed, and nonetheless publishes, throughout the Austrian Grand Prix. “They got here up with the Crimson Bulletin, {a magazine} for the paddock,” says Coulthard. “I do know that Ron form of banned the McLaren mechanics from taking it into the hospitality.

Vettel reads the Crimson Bulletin, however Dennis was not so open

Photograph by: Crimson Bull GmbH and GEPA footage GmbH

“It might be sometimes Ron, however I’m certain he was studying them. In his workplace – I used to be there for 9 years – he stated ‘I don’t learn any magazines’ after which he’d open his high drawer and also you’d see all of the magazines! It’s notion versus actuality. These are simply folks, regardless of how they might seem on the outside. The identical utilized to Crimson Bull. The outside was the advertising facet of the workforce, however the inside was what we have been making an attempt to do, which was enhancing the workforce.”

Based on Horner, each issues go hand in hand. “Once we first entered Components 1, we performed loud music within the garages and launched a hospitality that we known as the Power Station,” he explains. “Issues have been completely different, and due to that, folks thought: ‘These guys aren’t critical. They’re not right here to win; they’re simply right here to have time.’

“However that was completely not the case. We have been simply as decided to win as some other workforce. We simply weren’t afraid to have some enjoyable alongside the best way and to precise ourselves in a different way. That hasn’t modified through the years. We’re nonetheless the workforce with the loudest music and I really feel sorry for whoever is subsequent to us, particularly since a few of our mechanics have a reasonably doubtful music style these days…”

From social gathering workforce to championship contender

Although the quantity of the music hasn’t modified, the outcomes have. In its first 12 months, Crimson Bull scored 34 factors, whereas the workforce has now secured eight drivers’ titles and 6 constructors’ championships. “For that first 12 months, Mateschitz advised me: ‘I’m not going to pay you numerous, however for each level you rating, I’ll offer you a wholesome bonus’,” says Horner. “Jaguar had scored 9 factors the 12 months earlier than, so 10 or 11 factors would already be a hit. However in our first race, we scored 9 factors and by the top of the 12 months we had 34. Thank God, in any other case I wouldn’t have been capable of pay my mortgage!”

The world appears to be like very completely different now, and the bar is about a lot larger, however Coulthard noticed the seeds for Crimson Bull’s current success being planted proper from the beginning: “100%, and belief me: if I hadn’t seen that, I wouldn’t have signed for them again then.”

Twenty years after signing Coulthard and getting into the sequence because the paddock’s final social gathering workforce, Horner smiles: “Whenever you have a look at every thing we’ve achieved thus far, then you need to say it isn’t too unhealthy for an vitality drink firm…”