Red Bull Racing: Success Through Dysfunction

It’s November 15, 2004. About two months ago, on September 17, Ford Motor Company announced that their Formula One team, Jaguar Racing, would be put up for sale. During its existence, the British outfit had several recognizable names in its ranks, including team principal (and three-time World Champion) Niki Lauda. Despite the experience within their personnel, the team had seen very little success during their five seasons on the grid, placing on the podium just twice and never winning a race. Over the last two months, F1’s governing body, the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile, had charged Jaguar personnel with finding a successor for the team to keep a 10th team on the grid and keep 340 people employed. However, the team’s deadline to find a replacement is upon them, and no one has stepped up at this point. 

Then, on that fateful day, reports began coming in that a buyer had been found. That buyer was Dietrich Mateschitz and his energy drink company, Red Bull. The drink had been associated with motorsports since the 90s, but this was the company’s first venture into operating a team and not simply sponsoring one.

What followed no one in Formula One could have ever expected: after four years of dragging along as a middling team under their new leadership, Red Bull propelled themselves to the front of the grid, finishing 2nd in the Constructor’s Championship in 2009 and never looking back. To date, the now-Austrian outfit has seen seven Driver’s Championships and six Constructor’s Championships. Two different legends have emerged from the junior program, with more potentially on the way. 

However, despite all this success, there’s always been something poking through the cracks, ready to rear its ugly head at the first chance. Well, in 2024, the floodgates have opened, and it’s been followed by a mass exodus out of the team and an apparent revolt by some within the fanbase. Where did it all go wrong for Red Bull? And do they have the resources to correct their course and keep themselves at the top of F1?

A History Lesson

Red Bull has a long history in F1, dating past the purchase of the Jaguar Racing team. The company entered F1 in 1995, as Mateschitz bought a majority stake in the Sauber team. Following the purchase, Red Bull would sign a 10-year sponsorship deal with the squad. However, they would only fulfill six years of the contract due to a driver controversy within the team entering the 2001 season. 

After the Jaguar purchase, Red Bull struggled to acclimate to the sport in their early years. Veteran David Coulthard led the team alongside a carousel of drivers in the second seat between 2005 and 2008, with the team finishing no higher than 5th in the Constructor’s Championship during that span.

During the years of struggling for grip in the series, Red Bull was able to amass a solid fanbase through non-conventional means. When Red Bull first entered Formula One, they sought to bring the fun nature of the company into the sport’s landscape. Over the years, Red Bull has run several one-off liveries with branding from movie franchises such as Superman, Star Wars, the Ocean’s films, and James Bond, to associate the team with that fun nature. These efforts gave the team a solid fanbase, but the main thing that attracts fans in all sports is success. Fortunately for Red Bull, success would be coming soon.

In 2009, new major car regulations allowed several teams to shoot up the order, the most notable being Brawn GP, who won the Constructor’s Championship in their only season on the grid. While Brawn received all the coverage, Red Bull also took the opportunity to boost themselves forward. Thanks to the engineering genius of new Chief Technical Officer Adrian Newey, Red Bull made a late-season charge that propelled them to a 2nd place Constructor’s Championship placement, with new driver Sebastian Vettel setting a team-best 2nd in the Driver’s Championship. 

Vettel and Red Bull built off their momentum heading into the next year, with Newey designing a car that would be at the forefront of Formula One for several years. Red Bull would secure both championships in four consecutive seasons from 2010 to 2013, with Mark Webber regularly right behind Vettel. 

Unfortunately for Red Bull, Newey’s magic wouldn’t save them in the engine-focused turbohybrid era the sport entered in 2014. Mercedes would rise to the front in 2014, using a very similar formula for success to Red Bull’s back in 2009: buy a grid slot from a team exiting the grid (Brawn GP, in this case), spend a few years developing in the background, and rocket forward when new major regulations hit. 

Red Bull would be solid during the turbohybrid era, with drivers such as Daniel Ricciardo and wunderkind Max Verstappen guiding the team to five consecutive top-three finishes in the Constructor’s Championship between 2016 and 2020, but the outfit always remained in the shadow of the Mercedes giant, as the Silver Arrows rattled off eight consecutive Constructor’s Championship victories. 

However, momentum finally began carrying to Red Bull in 2021, as while Mercedes secured another Constructor’s title, Max Verstappen won a very exciting (and extremely controversial) Driver’s Championship battle with seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton. With the turbohybrid era coming to an end following the season, Red Bull was able to again rise to the occasion and put together the best car on the grid. 

Red Bull cruised to back-to-back Constructor’s Championships, with Verstappen securing another pair of Driver’s Championships. The 2023 season was one of the best seasons of all time for any F1 team, as Red Bull won all but one race over the course of the year. 2024 started similarly, but numerous issues have plagued the team, likely leaving them out of contention for another Constructor’s title and putting a Driver’s Championship lead that once sat at 84 points in jeopardy. Several issues have led to these struggles, and the struggles are also isolating a once passionate fanbase.

The Crumbling Backbone

During their historic 2023 season, Red Bull had some of the most coveted names in the industry working across their team. This allowed them to dominate virtually everything off the track, from car development to race strategy to pit stop effectiveness. Today, those coveted names have scattered. It started with the announcement that arguably the greatest technical director of all time, Adrian Newey, would depart the team in May. In August, sporting director Jonathan Wheatley was named the team principal for the new Audi team starting in 2026, ending his role at Red Bull following the 2024 season. Another blow came in September, when McLaren announced that they had signed head strategist Will Courtenay as their sporting director for 2026, with Courtenay leaving Red Bull after 2025. So, in the span of just over four months, three team members who served major roles announced their exits. What had caused this mass exodus of high-caliber employees to other teams? 

Many theorized that these employees simply sought to continue moving up the F1 ladder and that Red Bull had run out of opportunities for advancement. However, there is evidence that a workplace issue at Red Bull is driving some of these top-notch team personnel away from the team. The first indication of an issue is the situation with Newey. Since he reached status as a top-notch engineer, Newey had only left teams when some sort of controversy gave him reason to leave. The primary example of this was Newey’s exit from Williams following the team preventing him from becoming chief technical director despite his designs producing five consecutive Constructor’s Championships. The other strange detail about Newey’s departure is that, unlike Wheatley and Courtenay, Newey did not have a destination when he announced his departure; in fact, that landing spot wasn’t determined until September when he signed with Aston Martin.

Another reason to believe that the exodus was caused by something within the workplace was the Christian Horner controversy that occurred over the off-season. In February, with the season opener in Bahrain just two weeks away, Horner faced allegations of inappropriate behavior with a female Red Bull employee. Despite being cleared by Red Bull’s internal investigation, screenshots of inappropriate texts from Horner to the employee were anonymously released to media outlets just a day after the conclusion of the investigation, turning the public further against Horner and Red Bull. Newey’s departure is reportedly related to the situation with Horner, and the other departures within the team were likely also related in some fashion.

The Fed-Up Drivers

Of course, you could toss a literal rocket onto the track, and it wouldn’t be successful without a wrangler taming the beast. Red Bull has had some of the best drivers on the grid driving their cars, and that wouldn’t be possible without their junior program which is without equal. Red Bull operates a junior team in lower formula series, offering to pay half the price of their young drivers’ seats. In an environment where drivers often must spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to progress up the ladder, this philosophy allows Red Bull to search for young talent while not worrying as much about whether the driver will be able to fund his career. Red Bull also owns a second F1 team, formerly known as Toro Rosso and AlphaTauri and now known as RB, which has been used as a B team where rookie drivers can acclimate to F1 while not wasting a seat on the A team. 

This system has allowed Red Bull to not only bring loads of potential into the fold but to give an extra pair of high-caliber juniors a chance to adjust to the environment of Formula One, leading to better results when those juniors hit the A team. It has worked almost to perfection for Red Bull, with 16 drivers in the junior team graduating to one of the two Red Bull-owned F1 teams, including five race winners and two World Champions. 

Despite this strong junior program, Red Bull has gained a reputation for being very inconsistent in the handling of drivers on their F1 teams. On some occasions, such as with Pierre Gasly and Nyck de Vries, Red Bull has been utterly ruthless, cutting or demoting underperforming drivers at the drop of the hat. Gasly produced poorly in 12 races in 2019 before being demoted to Toro Rosso for the remainder of the season. De Vries received even less grace, participating in just 10 Grands Prix for AlphaTauri before being cut completely. 

In other situations, drivers have spent nearly two seasons struggling to produce results yet have been given a leash longer than the late-season flight from Brazil to Qatar. The culmination of this confusing manner of handling drivers occurred at the Singapore Grand Prix. RB driver Daniel Ricciardo, who had returned to the fold in 2023 with designs on regaining the Red Bull seat he vacated in 2018, was unceremoniously removed from his seat following an 18th-place finish. 

The F1 community, both Red Bull fans and fans of other teams, slammed the team for the apparent lack of respect for Ricciardo, an eight-time race winner who had, at times, flashed World Champion potential. Another focus of the backlash was the performance of Sergio Perez. Perez had seemingly forgotten how to drive over the last ten Grand Prix, producing a lower average finishing position than Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda in a car that was four places higher in the Constructor’s standings. The questionable decision-making around Red Bull’s drivers highlighted the main reason Red Bull has been losing fans in recent months: they’ve prioritized money over performance.

The Spirit of Motorsport

Since their success began in the 2010s, Red Bull has always focused on producing exciting racing by employing highly competitive drivers. Pairings such as Vettel/Webber and Ricciardo/Verstappen created some Hollywoodesque moments that brought popularity to the team. However, that has changed in recent years. 

Ever since 2021, when Sergio Perez replaced Alexander Albon and instantly helped Max Verstappen win his first championship, Red Bull has shifted away from that exciting competition. Perez is the representation of this change. Perez hasn’t shown the ability to compete with Verstappen since joining the team, but what he has shown is the willingness to sacrifice his race and car to defend Verstappen. Perez also brought in a sponsorship deal with Telcel, a Mexican cell service company, when he entered the team, which is reportedly defending Perez’s spot with the team despite his lack of on-track results. 

This is truly why Red Bull is losing many of their fans: they no longer care about producing the best possible team. They seem to care only about providing the best environment for Verstappen’s success, and their financial benefit. This focus, alongside the overall awful handling of some fan-favorite drivers, has led the team to lose fans across the F1 community. Fans rage on social media sites, calling for the firing of Perez and Horner and the return of Ricciardo. However, as we’ve learned in several other sports in recent years, fans can often be appeased by performance. 

Unfortunately for Red Bull, they appear to be on the opposite trajectory for such performance in the coming years. The loss of key personnel is already affecting both the development of the car and the morale of remaining personnel, evident in Red Bull’s recent struggles on track and in the pit lane. Verstappen’s Driver’s Championship lead that reached a height of 84 after the British Grand Prix has shrunk down to only 52 with just six Grands Prix to go. Perez continues to blunder about on track, barely scraping a point in the latest Grand Prix in Singapore. And the future of the team is bleak thanks again to those fleeing personnel. If Red Bull doesn’t fix their glaring issues fast, the massive fanbase that they’ve built over the past two decades will likely be searching for new teams to root for.