Red Bull Formula One model cars | Red Bull F1 Model

As you might expect of a leading marketing and energy drink company, Red Bull entered the Formula One world championship with a bang in 2005, after acquiring the Jaguar team. The outfit scored a double points finish in its very first race, in the Australian Grand Prix, with its lead driver David Coulthard and Christian Klein. Several more points finishes would follow over the course of the team’s inaugural season.

 

A major milestone was achieved in 2006 when Coulthard scored the team’s first podium finish, around the streets of Monaco. For 2007 Mark Webber replaced Klien, scoring a podium in the European Grand Prix. Coulthard retired at the end of the 2008 season, to be replaced by young superstar Sebastian Vettel.

 

Red Bull established itself as a true frontrunner in 2009 as it scored its first grand prix wins. Vettel and Webber won six races between them, as the team finished runner-up in the constructors’ standings. The outfit would then come close to dominating the sport for the next four years, Vettel winning four consecutive drivers’ championships from 2010 to 2013, while the team also took home the constructors’ prize during that period.

 

For 2014 Daniel Ricciardo replaced the retired Webber, scoring three wins during the season, but Red Bull had to play second fiddle as Mercedes started its own period of domination under the new turbo engine rules set. Vettel left for Ferrari at the end of the year, and was replaced by Daniil Kvyat.

 

The team was winless in 2015, and a few races into the 2016 season the underperforming Kvyat was replaced by Max Verstappen, who had been promoted from Red Bull’s junior Toro Rosso team. The Dutchman was an immediate sensation, winning his very first race for the team in Spain, becoming the youngest ever winner of a Formula One race at 18 years and 228 days. Ricciardo also scored another victory for the team that year.  

 

Verstappen and Ricciardo remained as team-mates until the end of the 2018 season, scoring a few more wins between them. Ricciardo then left for Renault to be replaced by Pierre Gasly, who was benched halfway through the 2019 season as he wasn’t producing the results expected of him. He was replaced by Alexander Albon, who lasted until the end of the 2020 campaign before he was let go for the same reason. All the while Verstappen was proving himself to be the only consistent challenger to the all-conquering Mercedes.

 

Sergio Perez joined Red Bull for the 2021 season, and provided effective back-up to Verstappen as the team leader engaged in a furious year-long championship battle with Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton that involved not a little amount of controversy. In the final race showdown in Abu Dhabi Verstappen passed Hamilton on the very last lap to secure his first world championship.

 

Verstappen would then go on to dominate the next two seasons, easily scoring a second and then third drivers’ title as Red Bull did the double in the constructors’ championship. Verstappen set a new record of 15 grand prix wins in a single season in 2022, which he then bettered to 19 in 2023. He also set a new all-time record of 10 victories in a row in the latter campaign.

 

Verstappen and Perez remain as Red Bull’s two drivers for the 2024 Formula One world championship.