Red Bull

**Red Bull Racing** is a UK-based Austrian racing team and the racing division and main team of energy drink giants Red Bull Gmbh. The team debuted in Formula 1 back in 2005, but started becoming a dominant force in the sport from 2009 onwards and endured its golden age from 2010 to 2013 with Sebastian Vettel. From 2014 onwards Red Bull had not won any titles but still remained a threat. With the inception of Formula Earth in 2020, Red Bull was still one of the best teams of the grid, although a bit reliant on star driver Max Verstappen, with the Dutchman coming close to a title in 2024. From 2026 to 2031, Red Bull started slipping down the order so that they could conserve money for the new regulations from 2032 onwards. During that time, Red Bull had descended to lower midfield and sometimes even struggled to score points. However, with the new regulations kicking in by the time 2032 came, the Austrian team's strategy worked as they won the first two titles of the new era in 2032 and 2033, beginning a so-called second golden age.

## Origins and Formula 1 History

Red Bull as a company was originally a sponsor for Sauber from 1995 to 2004 with no interest back then at creating a true racing team. However, at the end of the 2004 season, Jaguar Racing, formerly Stewart F1, decided to abandon their project as, despite being Ford's works team, failed to be a succesful team and put their assets on sale. Red Bull bought the assets on the deadline day and this set the basis for the creation of Red Bull Racing. The team from 2005 to 2008 was a decent mid-table side with occasional podium finishes. One year later, in 2006, the company purchased the assets of Minardi to form a feeder team, Toro Rosso, which runs nowadays as Alpha Tauri.

From 2009 onwards, the team started its rise to glory, with Vettel narrowly missing the title to shock winners Brawn GP, but once the British team was gone after just one season, Red Bull started to dominate the sport from 2010 to 2013. Vettel and teammate Mark Webber succesfuly fended off tough competition from Ferrari and McLaren to win 4 doubles and dominate the sport in what was their first golden age in the sport. From 2014 to 2019, they were playing second fiddle to Mercedes and Ferrari and did not win any titles.

## 2020-2025: Continuation of the title-less era

With Formula Earth being established in 2020, Red Bull entered with their 2019 lineup, Verstappen and Alexander Albon. Once again Red Bull was restricted into fighting Ferrari for second place in the standings. Meanwhile, Albon made history as the first Thai driver, and at the same time the first Asian driver, to win a Formula Earth race. The team won 4 out of the 22 races of the calendar. In 2021, Verstappen finished 3rd behind the Mercedes cars, but Albon was unable to build up from his breakthrough season, despite scoring one more win. 2022 was a quite similar year with 2021, but this time the team failed to record a single win despite its consistent results and Albon failed to even score a podium.

Following this, Albon was deemed surplus to requirements and was relegated to Alpha Tauri for 2023, with academy prospect Ness Muller moving up from the Italian team to Red Bull. Still, results remained the same, although Muller proved to be a better teammate to Verstappen. 2024 was their first true battle for a title, with Verstappen losing the title to Carlos Sainz and Muller finishing 5th and scoring his first ever win. The team won 4 out of the 16 races and finished second on the standings behind the dominant McLaren. In 2025, the team fell behind McLaren and Renault, and things went worse when Verstappen got injured on the second race and missed four more races. Surpsiringly, his replacement for those races was Vettel, who briefly came out of retirement to run for a final time to the team where he dominated. Muller also experienced a tough year and failed to win a single race.

## 2026-2031: Money saving and decline

Following the end of the season, Muller, afraid of Verstappen's influence to him, fled the team to join rivals Ferrari. At the same time, the new regulations for 2032 were announced and Red Bull started to save money to preserve them for future domination, at the cost of them slipping down the grid for the years with the current regulations. This led to those five years being the worst of the team's existence. In 2026, Verstappen was kept by the team and Formula International runner-up Antoine Robespierre joined as second driver. While the Dutchman once again proved his talent on a weaker car, the Frenchman was not good enough and left the team at the end of the year.

In 2027, Verstappen also left the team to join Renault, and the team had a whole new lineup, former champion Sainz and Sauber prodigy Giovanni de Ziel. The team, no longer the dominant force they used to be, was now the best of the rest, thanks to overachieveing de Ziel. Sainz on the other hand struggled and proved that his best days had passed. Sainz left the team in favour of Audi and was replaced by former Ferrari driver Tanjiro Kamado. Once again, the team was best of the rest, fending off competition from Shadow and Audi. 2029 proved to be even worse, as Red Bull lost even more ground to the frontrunners, now even struggling to score points, in fact Kamado only scored 1 point. De Ziel left the team and Red Bull signed Jason Leung, who was dropped by McLaren in favour of Martin Fenin. The team improved from 2029 and was fine battling other midfielders. In 2031, Billy Mathman joined from Ferrari with Leung going the other way. At that year, Kamado suffered a season ending injury after a crash with Lando Norris, which saw the academy's most talented prospect Temirzhan Ershin entering for the last 4 races. In just 4 races, the talented Kazakh scored 20 points and saved the team from enduring its worst ever year.

## 2032-2036: The second golden age

In 2032, the new regulations kicked in, and Red Bull obviously became the best team on the grid. Surprisingly, Kamado was retained, despite Ershin's heroics, and the team endured a fantastic year. Muller, who returned after leaving Ferrari, won his first ever title and became the first Red Bull driver who wins a title since Vettel in 2013. Kamado also impressed on his final year of his Red Bull contract by finshing second. In 2033, Kamado left the team after the expiry of his contract and Ershin, who finished third for Alpha Tauri, was promoted. The 2033 season was very similar, despite competition from Ershin's Alpha Tauri replacement, Farid Esmaeilzadeh, Ershin won his first ever title, the first for an Asian driver and Muller finished 3rd in yet another super season for the Austrian team, who is now experiencing its second golden age. However, the next season saw them being overshadowed by Alpha Tauri, with Esmaeilzadeh winning the title for the Italian team. Ershin did manage to win 2 races. Muller, on the other hand, failed to win a race and departed the team after his contract expired in the end of the year, forming his own team, Allianz G2 Racing Team. In 2035, the team son the title with newly promoted Esmaeizladeh, who became the youngest ever double world champion aged 23. At the end of the year, they were shocked when Ershin left them for Allianz G2, with rookie of the year Emilio Guerra being promoted to the first team. Esmaeilzadeh continued his impressive performances and finished 5th, but Guerra struggled on his first season with the first team and finished 17th.

## 2037-present: Decline

Esmaeilzadeh and Guerra were retained for 2037, but Red Bull was starting to somewhat struggle for funds after the massive spending spree of the previous years and had a very weak car. Nevertheless, Esmaeilzadeh did manage to score a win for the team while Guerra did score as many points as he could, with the Austrian team overachieving, as they had the worst car on raw pace. However, the team suffered a major blow with Esmaeilzadeh leaving for Shadow. Liang Jin was promoted to the first team to replace him. Red Bull had a very weak car in 2038 and finished last in the standings with only 20 points.

Following the departure of Liang, Pawel Matuszczyk was signed from Ferrari, making him the first driver not coming from the academy to sign for the team since Billy Mathman. 2039 was a major improvement, with Matuszczyk finishing 10th and scoring the team's only podium of the season and Guerra finishing 12th and improving in general as a driver. However, 2040 saw the team on the lower midfield again, struggling for points and finishing 11th on the standings.

## Notable Drivers

* Max Verstappen (2020-2026)
* Alexander Albon (2020-2022)
* Ness Muller (2023-2025, 2032-2034)
* Sebastian Vettel (2024)
* Antoine Robespierre (2026)
* Giovanni de Ziel (2027-2029)
* Carlos Sainz (2027)
* Tanjiro Kamado (2028-2032)
* Jason Leung (2030)
* Billy Mathman (2031)
* Temirzhan Ershin (2031, 2033-2035)
* Farid Esmaeilzadeh (2035-2037 )
* Emilio Guerra (2036-present)
* Liang Jin (2038)
* Pawel Matuszczyk (2039-present)