Red Bull's livery (F1.com)
For a sport that has committed so much time and effort into formulating a more equitable brand of racing, Formula 1 seems to have a new monster at its helm. The precedent-setting regulations changes of 2022 have not had the intended ramifications on reducing the dominance of the big budget teams. Sure, the era of Mercedes AMG Petronas may have been nullified, but the next corporate entity has stepped up to the plate: Red Bull Racing.
It was a testament to Red Bull's Bahrain preeminence to see musings about a potential "perfect season." Surely at least one challenger will occupy the top step of the podium on a certain occasion in 2023, but the sense of foreboding regarding RBR's Constructors' Championship hopes looms on the horizon. Despite the new technical directives that were meant to bring the grid closer together, Red Bull's current championship odds rest at -450 (courtesy of SportsBettingDime), essentially stating that a $100 bet would only lead to a $122 payout, particularly mind-boggling after just one race. This ominous inevitability has terrified Formula 1 fans, already acclimatized to a one-team sport.
As good as Red Bull appear to be, they still have a long way to go to mimic the ideal picture for a Formula 1 team: Mercedes of the mid-to-late 2010s. Mercedes of 2014 are quite comparable to Red Bull in 2022: a team bereft of a long history in the sport, but still equally ambitious and aiming to create a lasting impact in F1. Oddly, they were also both led by two superstar drivers, in Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, respectively.
The potential for Red Bull to replicate their rivals' success is still quite low. No team in history would look at Mercedes' eight consecutive Constructors' Championships with any expression other than envy. Even as the discourse around Red Bull swirls, they still have only truly managed one title as a team, in year one of the newly adjusted technical regulations, a year of vulnerability for many of the other organizations in the paddock. Yet they are spoken about in a way that seems to reflect upon an extended glory period. It is a strange phenomenon that can be explained in a rather simple manner: people expect it to continue, and not just this season. Many constructors have pulled off two successive crowns, including some that have succumbed to the sands of time (Lotus, Brabham, Renault); it certainly doesn't indicate a dynasty in the making. The real worry from the fans' perspective is the projectability of Red Bull's ascendancy. There doesn't seem to be a way to stop Red Bull Racing.
Red Bull celebrate in Bahrain (F1.com)
When Mercedes embarked upon their period of supremacy, not only did they ruin the ethos of competition in the sport, but they also unveiled a formulaic way for other teams in the paddock to imitate their achievements. Whether team principal Toto Wolff revealed the equation purposefully to ensure that his team would always have a method to their madness is up to interpretation, but it was always likely that another group could just rob the Silver Arrows blindly of their recipe. The attentive fan should not be stunned that Christian Horner's Red Bull were the one to do it.
Though perhaps magnified by Netflix's dramatic documentary Drive to Survive, there is and has always been a funny dynamic between the leaders of these two teams. On one hand, there is Toto Wolff: 6'5, brimming with muscles, filthy rich from his successful investments in watchmaking and formula racing. On the other, we have Christian Horner: at a much more modest 5'8, known for quitting racing at a young age and outshone in the monetary department by his more successful wife, Geri Halliwell (better known as Ginger Spice in the music industry). As much as he denies it, Horner has always been jealous of Wolff's stature in the sport. After becoming known as a phenom for his role in turning Jaguar F1 into one of the more successful teams of the 21st century within five years, Horner was still unable to preserve his legacy when Wolff entered the fray and achieved even more immediate success.
But if there is one thing that Horner learned from his fury with Mercedes' explosion into a Formula 1 force, it was an unceasing drive to get the better of anybody who stood in his way. His investment into Red Bull Racing from an emotional perspective is admirable, even for those that frown upon his antics. Passionate and experienced, Horner has surely relished the decline of Wolff's Mercedes over the past two seasons. The Briton has no issues being the villain, as long as he is the topic of discussion. His cocky behaviour in the last season of Drive to Survive reflects upon a man in his groove. And thus, Red Bull have found the first ingredient to echoing Mercedes: a truly brilliant principal, one hardly lacking in confidence or insight.
Christian Horner (F1.com)
If Horner remains a prominent figure in RB F1, the team's chances to dominate the 2020s only soar even higher. He is an asset in the same way that Toto was for Mercedes. Though Red Bull probably would have won in 2022 in any circumstance, solely based off their car, it is impossible to ignore just how flawless they operated on a team level. Utterly rapid during the pit stops, impenetrable in terms of race strategy and a model image in terms of communication between garages (other than the Brazil incident). Horner oversees all of those departments, and he does it well. Maybe he's naturally infuriating, but his false charm during interviews over the weekend always seems to rattle the likes of Wolff, McLaren's Zak Brown and last year, Ferrari's Mattia Binotto. He's far from the most pleasant figure, but he comprehends how to get under the skin of his opponents and he knows how to operate a team to their fullest potential.
Perhaps the area where Horner does not get nearly enough credit is car development. 2023 is the third consecutive year that Red Bull have spawned an absolute rocket ship out of pre-season testing and the team is much improved in terms of mid-season additions. Evidently, Horner is not the one to actually engineer a masterpiece like the RB19, but his presence in recruiting the genius behind it cannot be understated.
Adrian Newey has a complicated legacy in Formula 1. Starting at the modest Leyton House team, Newey's first design extracted some strong results for a lower budget team. However, Newey immediately pursued personal glory when he was offered the chance to engineer cars for Williams F1 in the early 1990s. The FW14, under oversights from Newey and Patrick Head, won five Constructors' Championships and four Drivers' Championships, yielding 59 race victories and 78 pole positions in seven years. However, controversy surrounded his later years, including manslaughter charges regarding Ayrton Senna's unfortunate death while driving a Newey car and a rumoured fall-out with his partner, Head. That did not stop Newey from picking up another high-profile job at McLaren, where he immediately built a two-time Drivers' Championship-winning car. But politics again began to swirl. Jaguar F1 seemed to have a deal in place to hire Newey as their technical director, but a disagreement regarding compensation kept the British engineer under Ron Dennis' supervision for McLaren. For the last couple years of his tenure at the papaya orange team, Newey seemed destined to leave, a fate that is rarely pleasant for any employee.
Mika Hakkinen (left) and Adrian Newey (right) at McLaren (McLaren/Twitter)
Expected to take a sabbatical in 2006, this is where Christian Horner enters the picture. It was speculated that Newey would retire from Formula 1 after the 2005 season with McLaren. But Horner, a man of honeyed words, coerced Newey into signing a long-term deal for a new institution in the sport: Red Bull Racing. Admittedly, the $10 million signing bonus probably went a long way to convincing Newey to put pen to paper, but it was still a massive risk for a man who had been working with the class of the field for the past decade.
The Newey-era started slowly and Red Bull continued to stumble with reliability, despite minor sparks of promise. The 2008 chassis, in particular, looked like the design to take Red Bull to the next level but a drop-off in performance over the summer break caused the team to finish lower in the Constructors' standings than Toro Rosso, the feeder team for RBR, typically operating off of the scraps from the 'A' team.
The promotion of Sebastian Vettel into the driver's seat for 2009 correlated with Newey's best Red Bull car yet. From there, a dynasty was established. 4 consecutive world titles. 9 straight wins for Vettel in 2013. Boos raining down from the crowds, eager to see another winner. It really is not far off from what many people are expecting from this current Red Bull era.
Though struggles with Renault and Honda engines hindered Newey's capabilities with the vehicle from 2014-2020, his status as the star engineer of the formula racing scene has never diminished. Though Newey's roles and responsibilities decrease every single year, 17 years with the team has instilled a culture of engineering excellence that the rest of the paddock can only dream to match.
Pierre Wache, Enrico Balbo, Craig Skinner and Ben Waterhouse, under Newey's supervision and mentorship, are credited for the conquering RB19, which won the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix from nearly 40 seconds over its nearest competitor. This is incredibly impressive, but the mitigating circumstances surrounding victory in Sakhir made the RB19's first performance of the season far scarier for the field and far more indicative of the heights that Red Bull may reach over the next few years.
One must not forget that Red Bull were very restricted in their off-season aerodynamic development, losing 10% of all wind tunnel hours after being convicted of breaching the newly installed cost cap during the 2021 season. Horner speculated that a loss of aero testing time could result in a loss of "between 0.25 and 0.5 seconds per lap." Another factor to consider is a finding from German auto magazine Auto Motor und Sport, who reported that during the latter stages of the Bahrain GP, Red Bull instructed their drivers to reduce engine running power, possibly sacrificing one full second per lap. Even if those digits are somewhat exaggerated, it is a testament to the technical mastery of Red Bull's engineering department that they could accomplish such a domineering performance, despite the factors that have limited the car's ability. Such a massive gap between the frontrunners and their nearest competitors has been an ever-present in the other notable dynasties of Formula 1 history, like Ferrari from 1999-2005 and Mercedes from 2014-2021 (see a trend?).
Newey's eventual departure would have been one of the few restrictions to what Red Bull Racing can accomplish in this decade, but even the loss of one of F1's most successful technical directors does not seem to put a ceiling on the organization. Yet again, Horner's savvy at running a team is on full display.
Funnily enough, recruiting Newey arguably isn't even the most impactful move that Horner has made since moving to the top job. In August 2014, a 17-year old kid partook in a Formula Renault 3.5 test. This young boy had starred in go-karting, notably winning the WSK World Series and the 2013 World KZ Championship, all the while being far younger than most of his competition. At the Formula Renault 3.5 test, there were several scouts, each of them yearning to sign up a clearly world-class talent for the future. Rumours continuously persist that Mercedes, in the early stages of their dominance, were expected to add this boy to their driver development programme, but a late pitch, helmed by Christian Horner, convinced the kid to join the Red Bull Junior Team.
Seven years later, Max Verstappen lifted the Formula 1 world championship under the bright lights of Abu Dhabi, representing Red Bull Racing. For as integral as Christian Horner and Adrian Newey have been to the whole operation, Verstappen is the biggest commodity in modern Formula 1 and it was Horner himself who persuaded a young, immature Verstappen to join the team on that fateful day of the Formula Renault drive. Red Bull's role in nurturing the Dutchman is highly significant. As a driver, Verstappen has reached his fullest potential and as a person, Verstappen has transformed from a hot-headed youngster to a truly respected man with an uncanny ability of dealing with the deadly pressure cooker of F1.
Max Verstappen (F1.com)
Though Verstappen has certainly gathered plenty of plaudits for his unmatched pace on the race track, very few actually understand what he could actually achieve in the sport. If Red Bull truly continue their ascent into the history books, Verstappen will shatter an unprecedented amount of records. His raw pace and aggressiveness is reminiscent of Ayrton Senna, widely considered a top-3 driver of all-time. While Senna was utterly rapid in his prime, as previously mentioned, his life was cut short following a fatal accident while driving Newey's FW14 in 1994. He was restricted to just 10 seasons at the highest level, as a result. Thus, Verstappen is perfectly capable of surpassing Senna in wins, championships, pole positions and the like. After his first world title in 2021, Verstappen pledged his loyalty to Red Bull Racing until 2028, giving the Dutch superstar more than enough time to stamp his name in greatest of all time conversations. Though Verstappen has been on record as saying that he doesn't wish to continue F1 racing into his late 30s, his intentions are subject to change. With longer seasons, comprehensive safety measures, a team completely focused on his individual success and the sport's most renown technical squad, Verstappen could legitimately challenge Lewis Hamilton's record of 103 victories and maybe even seven Drivers' Championships (currently an achievement shared by Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher).
Verstappen is the masthead of the RBR revolution, a man capable of extracting every last bit of performance from the slowest of cars. Put a rocket ship in his hands, like what Red Bull Power Trains have done over the past few years and suddenly, the competition seems futile. At just 25 years old, Verstappen will only continue to improve as a driver with more experience and physical maturation. He's a rarity in sport, a genuine G.O.A.T candidate in the making. In the hypothetical case that Red Bull slip up with their development in the next few years, it may not matter with Verstappen at the wheel. If the Dutchman's path to the top does not slow, he will be a Drivers' Championship contender for the remainder of his time at Red Bull Racing.
This is not said to discount from Sergio Perez, Verstappen's teammate, who has been the ideal subdued sidekick for Max's more bombastic personality. Though Perez is far off Verstappen, on pure pace, his willingness to help the team mirrors another aspect of Mercedes. Displeased with the dynamic between Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton in the 2016 season after the teammates clashed with each other on several occasions, Wolff realized that complacency and unforced errors were the only way to end the Silver Arrows' period of excellence. Thus, they brought in former Williams driver, Valtteri Bottas, to slot in as the clear supporting option to Hamilton. Bottas, like Perez, is quick on his day, but the most valuable quality that the Finn brought to the table during the last years of Mercedes' streak was an unselfishness that is increasingly rare among Formula 1 drivers. Verstappen and Red Bull may well win the next few titles with just about anybody in the second seat, but finding an alternative to the 33-year old 'Checo' is the next shopping item on Horner's list, as the competition gets fiercer.
Luckily, Red Bull may already have that covered as well. As mentioned earlier, Red Bull have a sister team in the same division. Once known as Toro Rosso, now called AlphaTauri, Horner has an ideal 'daycare' for the promising drivers of the team's junior driver programme. In recent years, drivers like Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon and Yuki Tsunoda, all destined for big things, have been bedded into Formula 1, infamous for its vast intensity. In fact, Verstappen himself came through the ranks at Toro Rosso. Though AlphaTauri hasn't exactly had success with identifying the perfect partner for Verstappen, it has nevertheless produced race winners, like Carlos Sainz and Gasly. Eventually, whether it be somebody like Liam Lawson, Dennis Hauger, or even Tsunoda, a talented driver will be deemed ready to take Perez's place beside Verstappen at RBR. It's an ideal business formula that even Mercedes didn't have access to at the peak of their powers.
Franz Tost, team principal of AlphaTauri (F1.com)
Red Bull will only continue to grow in stature. At the launch of their 2023 livery, it was surprisingly announced that they would be partnering with Ford to contribute to engine development within the next few seasons. Ford are one of the most successful engine manufactures in F1 history, currently ranked third among all engine makers in terms of world championships won, behind only Ferrari and Renault. Backed by yet another big budget brand, this alliance could have severe ramifications upon the rest of the grid.
Talks have begun to rage that Red Bull may start selling their engine to other teams around the grid, only increasing the amount of money that Horner will have to optimize RBR and to have it develop into the dominant force of the 2020s and perhaps beyond.
Full credit to Red Bull, of course. Just like Mercedes before them and Ferrari even before that, they've nailed the start of a new era, dictated by the introduction of technical regulations, which has historically set up a platform for teams to completely rule the sport. Armed with a truly special driver, a business model that has been honed by history, a group of engineers with guidance from one of the greatest Formula 1 minds ever and a highly motivated team principal who wants, above all else, to have the Red Bull name sealed in stone, there don't seem to be many obstacles to what could be a Mercedes-esque decade.
Funnily enough, with Ferrari's recent incompetence and the downfall of engineering quality from Toto Wolff's team, it might be Aston Martin, backed by Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll, that pose the most prevalent threat to RBR. They've taken major inspiration from Red Bull for the car design and they looked lightning quick at times in Bahrain. Yet, they still finished close to a minute behind the top two Red Bulls. Though teams like Aston and Ferrari have the potential to be a world-championship outfit, Red Bull are as certain as it gets. Ferrari have the elite driver on hand, in Charles Leclerc, but they appear to be lacking engineering genius and a true personality in the team principal role. Aston Martin have plenty of financial backing, but can a Fernando Alonso-Lance Stroll driver pairing really shake up the order? None of these questions apply to Red Bull, and that is why they are set to occupy the F1 throne for the foreseeable future.
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