Red Bull’s 7 greatest moments in Formula 1

Herbert earns Stewart's sole success 

The Stewart Grand Prix team didn’t quite experience the triumphs that its triple World Champion founder did. As it closed out its third (and final) season in the sport in 1999 its drivers had stood on the podium three times, but never on the top step.  That was until the 1999 European Grand Prix, where Johnny Herbert would deliver Stewart a much-coveted win — though not without a generous dose of good fortune. 

That race at the Nürburgring was chaotic, marked by unpredictable weather and a series of retirements and pit-stop blunders from frontrunners like Heinz-Harald Frentzen, David Coulthard, Giancarlo Fischella and Ralf Schumacher. Herbert, who qualified 14^th, kept a cool head amid the confusion. 

Frentzen was the first to go after he forgot to disable the anti-stall system after pitting, causing his car to go into neutral and the German to (incorrectly) report a loss of drive. Coulthard was next, gambling on dry tyres in wet conditions that led him to spin out oof the race. Fischella went the same way on lap 49 before the new race leader, Schumacher, suffered a puncture.

It was Herbert who had climbed through the field after changing to wet tyres at the perfect time, who inherited the lead of the Grand Prix, while team-mate Rubens Barrichello finished third to give the team an unforgettable double podium.

Coulthard rings in the Red Bull era

Red Bull's acquisition of Jaguar in November 2004 breathed new life into a team beset by poor management. A 25-year-old Christian Horner was installed as the new team boss, while drivers Christian Klien and David Coulthard were a perfect combination of youth and experience. 

In its new guise team immediately showed promise, with Coulthard and Klein finishing fourth and seventh, respectively, at 2005's season opener in Australia. Red Bull finished its first season with 34 Constructors' points on the board and a promising new employee by the name of Adrian Newey on the books. While 2006 saw the team record 18 fewer points than the year before, it did mark its first-ever trip to the podium, at no less than the iconic Monaco Grand Prix.

Coulthard, who qualified seventh, lost positions in the early phase of the race, but pitstops, retirements and penalties conspired to promote the Scotsman to third by its conclusion. All of this led to jubilant scenes in the Red Bull camp, as Horner — who'd promised to go skinny dipping if the team finished in the top three — stayed true to his word and jumped into the team’s pool, but not before mercifully wrapping up in a Superman cape.

Vettel records the first Grand Prix victory

It would be another three years before the team's first Grand Prix would come, courtesy of Coulthard’s replacement, Sebastian Vettel. An onslaught of rain at the 2009 Chinese Grand Prix probably wasn't to every driver's taste but it gave Vettel, racing for only the third time for Red Bull, the opportunity needed to give the team its first win. 

Vettel qualified in pole position, but the rain was so bad the race started under the safety car, which stayed out until lap eight and was soon enough called back into action on lap 20 after Rober Kubica crashed into Jarno Trulli, spreading debris all over the track.

A lap later, Vettel was rear-ended by Toro Rosso's Sébastien Buemi, but after surviving this the win never seemed in doubt. The young German driver put in a performance that belied that he was only 21 years old, and after five seasons in F1 Red Bull had finally secured its first Grand Prix victory.

More wins followed that season, with Vettel emerging victorious in Britain, Japan – where he led every lap of the race, and Abu Dhabi, F1's first day-to-night race, leaving the German runner-up in the Drivers' Championship behind Brawn’s Jenson Button. Not that it would take long for him to join that exclusive club…

F1’s youngest-ever Champion

Vettel would only have to wait until the following season to be crowned Champion. He started 2010 as he meant to go on, taking pole position at the Bahrain Grand Prix, translating to a fourth-place finish after an engine misfire. In a season that had no clear favourite, Vettel took his first win at Round 3 in Malaysia, and bagged second position in Monaco, pulling off a 1-2 finish with team-mate Mark Webber.

However, the first sparks of the Webber-Vettel rivalry jumped into view at the Turkish Grand Prix, Vettel showed his F1-racer teeth coming together with his team-mate under braking as he attempted to squeeze him onto the grass. The German picked up a puncture while Webber finished third — a disaster for a team that had been odds-on for another 1-2 finish.

The friction inside Red Bull only worsened, when Webber's car was stripped of its new front wing at the British Grand Prix and bolted to Vettel's machine after he'd damaged his. Nonetheless, Webber would win the race, overtaking Vettel from second place off the line, uttering the immortal words "not bad for a number two driver" on his cooldown lap. 

Drivers’ Championship would go down the wire, Webber, Vettel, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton all in contention in Abu Dhabi. Vettel's securing pole position proved crucial as his rivals’ hopes dissolved behind traffic, allowing him to take his first of four consecutive Drivers' Championships and surpassing Hamilton to become the youngest driver to achieve the feat (aged 23 years and 134 days), a record Vettel holds to this day.

Verstappen breaks records with debut win

Two years before his Championship record, Vettel had become the youngest ever Grand Prix winner with Torro Rosso. But records are made to be broken, and in this instance, Max Verstappen was the man to do it. Verstappen’s big opportunity came in 2016 when it was announced that he would be promoted to Red Bull from Toro Rosso after only one season in the sport, replacing the struggling Daniil Kvyat from the Spanish Grand Prix onwards. 

Red Bull's decision immediately paid dividends as Verstappen took fourth on the grid and rose to second place in the race behind team-mate Daniel Riccardo after Mercedes drivers Hamilton and Nico Rosberg took each other out of the race. Ricardo got overtaken in the pits by Verstappen, who was on a quicker two-stop strategy, but the youngster demonstrated skill beyond his 18 years, holding off Kimi Räikkönen's Ferrari to take a memorable debut win — the first of many.

The unforgettable 2021 finale

The 2021 F1 season would go down as a classic two-driver battle. Protagonists Verstappen and Hamilton swapped the Championship lead numerous times and tangled on the track on several occasions, most notably at the Italian Grand Prix when Verstappen found himself parked on top of the halo on Hamilton's Mercedes.

The season was so tight that the title decider came at the last race of the year in Abu Dhabi. To say this race was contentious would be an understatement as Hamilton, leading, fell victim to the ad hoc rule changes of race director Michael Masi. Instead of following protocol that would have seen the race finish under the safety car, Masi's decision left just five cars between Hamilton and Verstappen, on brand new tyres, allowing the Dutchman to take the lead of the race — and the Drivers’ Championship — with an overtake into turn five on the last lap of the race. 

While the circumstances were controversial, Verstappen's achievements were far from undeserved. He'd won ten races during the season, taken 18 podiums, and perhaps most revealing, had spent nearly double as many laps leading a race as Hamilton. His delight at becoming a World Champion plain to see and marked the beginning of Red Bull’s second spell of domination.

The RB19 proves unbeatable

By 2023 we were deep into the Max Verstappen era. Now with two Drivers’ Championships under his belt, the 2023 season delivered unprecedented success for Red Bull with the Dutchman winning an 19 of 22 races and taking his third title in Qatar with five races still to go. 

But while Verstappen's brilliance was undisputed, in a season that had only one non-Red Bull race winner, the team’s success has to be attributed to the formidable RB19, the car which remains the most dominant machine in F1's history. 

The RB19 was built on the success of its predecessor, the RB18, which had suspension designed by Adrian Newey explicitly to avoid the porpoising encountered by other cars. While the fundamentals of the RB18 were excellent, its aero package was underdeveloped, and it was a heavy car — 14kg heavier than the minimum weight dictated by the rules, which was a problem the RB19 set out to solve. 

Key to the RB19's aero was its V-shaped chassis, which increased the air flowing under the car and the efficiency of the side pods, while its Drag Reduction System was more effective than that of other teams. Despite all the work put into the RB19, Newey described its dominance as a 'complete surprise', as Red Bull claimed its second Constructors’ Championship in a row, and sixth overall.

The 2025 Festival of Speed takes place on 10^th-13^th July. Thursday tickets are now limited. A small batch of extra tickets for Friday–Sunday have just been released, exclusively for members of the GRRC.

Images courtesy of Getty Images.