Red Bull Racing

Team Red Bull is one of the two teams that the Austrian Beverage company owns. Red Bull decided to buy out the dying Jaguar F1 Racing team and brought it back to life. Ford had put the team up for sale in late 2004 and Red Bull, who also own teams in numerous other disciplines of racing at the top level, decided to go ahead and add another team to their kitty. The team went straight ahead and hired David Coulthard, a move that was deemed to be ‘thoughtless’.

The infighting on the appointment was made public but DC actually made incredible contributions to the team. The team managed to get 7 point finishes in the first 8 races of their debut season and throughout this time, they drove the old Jaguar cars. The team finished the season in 7th place, a creditable placement in their very first season.

DC was at the fore again as he lured McLaren’s design expert to join the team. DC got the team their first podium finish and rounded off a splendid performance by wearing a Superman Cape. Red Bull finished their second season in 7th place as well, and were set to take on the new season with a brand new, Renault-powered car. Unfortunately, the season didn’t turn out as well as they thought it would. Reliability issues were a major headache for the team and although Mark Webber did manage a podium finish in Germany, a few too many crashes had marred their entire season. In 2007, despite the crashes, the team finished 5th although critics were extremely harsh on the team and blamed them for not pushing things through.

In 2008, Coulthard will be driving for the last time around the Formula One tracks and the veteran will be retiring with Team Red Bull. Whether Webber and DC can make this year special in some way, it remains to be seen but one thing can be assured that the team has shown that it is capable of producing some incredible performances and although they may not be good enough to challenge for the title, they sure are good enough to damage someone else’s push for it.