130 replies to this topic

[GlenP]

What difference does it make? Red Bull is a drinks company? So? Bennetton makes jumpers - didn't make that team anything less. Dumb argument.

 

I don't see any difference particularly with how they go about business. All the big teams are highly political for example.

[Burtros]

Im a neutral on Red Bull and Vettel. I cannot hate them for being the best at what they do - that would be childish. 

 

There is one thing I hate about Red Bull actually. Its not F1 related though, its the taste of the drink. Dont understand why people pay so much money for what is essentially a cocktail of nastiness. Its not for me, unless mixed with a Jagermeister!

Edited by Burtros, 28 October 2013 - 14:52.

[SpaMaster]

Lot of people love RB, lot of them hate them. What do you think of them? Which weekend do you think was RB's easiest weekend in terms of pace? 

 

Personally I think the most irritating stuff about them is the theatre they come up with. Vettel has just said that this year had been a diffucult weekend for them. What? Is my English that bad that I can't make a difference between difficult and easy? Both in the qualy and race RB had 8 tenth over the rest (yesterday Webber was on pair with the Mercedes guy on the supposedly 7-8 tenth slower tyre, today Vettel was just cruising for the last 25 laps, despite that he had 30 seconds margin over Nico).  

 

Anyway a big congrat to the technical staff of RB. That is really something that needs to be given credit.

You start with love and hate as if you are opening a balanced thread and then immediately your true colour comes out - the most irritating stuff about them, ha haa. This is another inflammatory thread in the veil of being neutral.

 

I think Red Bull's presence is great for F1, particularly when I think of people like you. Ferrari and McLaren used to have a sense of an entitlement to being the top teams and they took things granted too much for too long. Then Red Bull came along and have made their situation very tenuous. They were just happily basking in the power of money and until a new kid in the block showed them up in their own way.

[X61]

Im a neutral on Red Bull and Vettel. I cannot hate them for being the best at what they do - that would be childish. 

 

There is one thing I hate about Red Bull actually. Its not F1 related though, its the taste of the drink. Dont understand why people pay so much money for what is essentially a cocktail of nastiness. Its not for me, unless mixed with a Jagermeister!

To be fair, could you name any drink that is not improved by Jager?

 

I agree Red Bull tastes like cat piss on its own.

[Burtros]

To be fair, could you name any drink that is not improved by Jager?

 

I agree Red Bull tastes like cat piss on its own.

 

No actually!

 

My comments about Red Bull can be applied to any Energy Drink to be fair. They are all minging!

Edited by Burtros, 28 October 2013 - 14:59.

[7MGTEsup]

Just wish I had thought of it first, getting kids hooked on a drink that tastes like crap and costs £1 a can (but probably about 5p to make).

[X61]

No actually!

 

My comments about Red Bull can be applied to any Energy Drink to be fair. They are all minging!

True about all energy drinks.  I cannot have caffeine, but even before this I can't recall a single energy drink that tasted good.  I nominate the Monster coffee flavored stuff as the worse.

[spacekid]

It's a great team. But it makes no sense that the FIA imposes budget caps while they have 4 cars on track.

 

"Difficult weekend" is corporate speak. They have been sweeping the floor with the competition for the last 4,5 years quite easily. They've probably had the best car by a margin in 70 of the last 90 Grand Prix and there is no discussion about that.

 

The team? The team is great. Best engineers, best mechanics (fastest pitstops), and a brilliant driver. They make the sport boring to be honest.

 

Good post. I agree with all except the final statement - I say its the other teams not competing to the same level that makes things appear uncompetitive.

 

I am not a fan, nor hater. Red Bull are the outfit who overall have performed best to the last 4 years, and its up to the rest to match their level. Not easy.

 

This domination could go on for another couple of years, but it will end. They always do. Just think back to McLarens 1994 season, Williams in '98, Ferari in 2005...

[ensign14]

Red Bull Racing makes me want to start an energy drink company.  I had always thought alcohol companies were where the money was.

 

The genius of Red Bull is that it isn't.  It doesn't make the drink, it doesn't bottle it, it doesn't distribute it.  All of that is done by others.

 

Mateschitz owns the brand and deals with the promotion.  That's all "Red Bull" does.  Even its Formula 1 team is Stewart with a Renault engine. 

 

So the Red Bull company has very little with which it is concerned on the ground.  It just licenses its brand to other people in return for promoting the hell out of it. 

 

And Red Bull in Thailand is not the Red Bull we avoid drinking over here.  The original form is like liquid sugar.

[RealRacing]

 

And Adrian - you're a genius, you've made your point! 10 x WDCs, 10 x WCCs, across three teams ans six drivers, is jaw-dropping. But you too often make F1 a terribly dull spectacle. With my greatest admiration and respect, the sooner you take up your Americas Cup Challenge, the better it will be for F1.

As long as it's not with Oracle, it'd be interesting...

[X61]

The genius of Red Bull is that it isn't.  It doesn't make the drink, it doesn't bottle it, it doesn't distribute it.  All of that is done by others.

 

Mateschitz owns the brand and deals with the promotion.  That's all "Red Bull" does.  Even its Formula 1 team is Stewart with a Renault engine. 

 

So the Red Bull company has very little with which it is concerned on the ground.  It just licenses its brand to other people in return for promoting the hell out of it. 

 

And Red Bull in Thailand is not the Red Bull we avoid drinking over here.  The original form is like liquid sugar.

Interesting, never knew that.  Thanks for the info  .

 

Now all I need to do is figure out how to market a shitty product and I can have my own F1 team.

[stanga]

If that happens, it's not just Red Bull you have to blame. It's Ferrari and McLaren too. So perhaps then these "historic" teams with "tradition" are as equally bad for the sport as Red Bull is?

 

 

I think you'll find McLaren are against the idea. Whitmarsh and Horner publicly disagreed on the subject of customer cars on an interview on Sky. And what has historic and tradition got to do with it? You are introducing that into the argument, not me. 

[Tenmantaylor]

Just wish I had thought of it first, getting kids hooked on a drink that tastes like crap and costs £1 a can (but probably about 5p to make).

 

You might as well say "I wish I had loadsa money"     Red Bull don't have a monopoly on the concept of a large profit margin FFS. You could argue the same about nearly any mass produced food product. Why aren't you bitching about the shitty PG Tips Tea that gets sold on trains for £2 that costs even less than Red Bull to make? Kit kats? Mars Bars? Any highly industrialised volume food product costs a tiny portion of the sale price to make. Oh yeah, none of these companies have set up an F1 team that is batting yours out of the park year in year out. The profit margin isn't why they are a successful company either. Do you buy a product because you know the company are making a good margin? No. You buy a product because it's giving you something you want that other companies can't or won't. Or you're buying into a shared belief or value, an image of yourself. Red Bull just happened to invent the global energy drinks market which put them in a prime position to capitalise. And they've done it amazingly well. Rather than just sit on their core product and focus on branding (Coca Cola) they've gone one step further and got involved in the lifestyles and sports they appeal to and I for one think the world of extreme sports is the better for it. They've funded so many events and sports people over the years to allow the pushing of the limits that weren't imaginable before. And now they are doing it in F1.

[7MGTEsup]

You might as well say "I wish I had loadsa money"     Red Bull don't have a monopoly on the concept of a large profit margin FFS. You could argue the same about nearly any mass produced food product. Why aren't you bitching about the shitty PG Tips Tea that gets sold on trains for £2 that costs even less than Red Bull to make? Kit kats? Mars Bars? Any highly industrialised volume food product costs a tiny portion of the sale price to make. Oh yeah, none of these companies have set up an F1 team that is batting yours out of the park year in year out. The profit margin isn't why they are a successful company either. Do you buy a product because you know the company are making a good margin? No. You buy a product because it's giving you something you want that other companies can't or won't. Or you're buying into a shared belief or value, an image of yourself. Red Bull just happened to invent the global energy drinks market which put them in a prime position to capitalise. And they've done it amazingly well. Rather than just sit on their core product and focus on branding (Coca Cola) they've gone one step further and got involved in the lifestyles and sports they appeal to and I for one think the world of extreme sports is the better for it. They've funded so many events and sports people over the years to allow the pushing of the limits that weren't imaginable before. And now they are doing it in F1.

 

Quit being so serious, IT WAS A JOKE.

 

And for the record I don't support any team or driver. I'm neutral so don't get upset at results and find much of the bickering back and forth amusing.

[Bruce]

 

Personally I think the most irritating stuff about them is the theatre they come up with. Vettel has just said that this year had been a diffucult weekend for them. 

 

Vettel was referring to the fact that red Bull waited until after mid race to terminate Webber's car... 

 

 

[InSearchOfThe]

It's great. Their presence in F1 has showed the established teams (McLaren & Ferrari) that they aren't the big boys anymore. And that's good.

 

It's the cycle of this sport. Go back 20 years. Williams in the 90s,McL late 90s, Ferrari 2000 decade and now RBR. There has always usual been one dominant team then two close teams then the rest.

 

I'm glad neither LdM or Ronny D will be counting the cash at christmas.

[Fastcake]

I'm taking this topic as a discussion about the company, rather than the racing team currently bearing their name.

 

Red Bull seem to be the only company actively keeping much of the lower ranks of motorsport funded at present. Apart from F1 and their driver programme, there's Red Bull sponsorship in a multitude of series, all giving people the opportunity to drive. Without them, there's a good chance many teams would cease to exist - there's precious few companies willing to get involved in motorsport nowadays. So it's good they're so willing to sponsor motorsport, amongst the vast amount of money seemingly spent on sponsoring anything with a risk of death. Do wish they would sell on Toro Rosso though. I know the team has supposedly been available for several years, but until it's gone we essentially have an uncompetitive team loitering in the midfield.

 

Their money won't be here forever though. Eventually there will come a time when the vast expense in F1 isn't delivering a return, especially if Red Bull Racing keep winning titles in such easy fashion. A Prost/Senna driver situation may not deliver titles to the team as easily, but a championship battle between two equal drivers will gather far more attention, and ultimately sell more fizzy drink cans. 

[V3TT3L]

'Leave me alone, I know what I'm doing' 

[lambylamby]

I'm going to wade in to the fray.

 

I dislike Red Bull. but not as much as Ferrari.

I find their marketing extremely tacky and is blatantly run by some 20something smug privately educated walk-into-a-job know it all, there's not the racing 'prestige' that they could exude and played from, as mentioned by others it comes across as 'false' hard work. Unfortunately the knock on effect is it seems to rub off on the team (rightly or wrongly) the whole operation comes across as smug and smarmy. I cringe every time that finger comes out, for first place, and vettel seems to be a humble guy outside of the sport. My problem is with the marketing underpinning as coming across as false, which makes them easier to dislike. They try to hard to be liked by fans is my feeling. Unfortunately even if they didn't cheat on this years car, I always feel they have left a feeling the last few years that I am suspicious as to whether their car is even legal, despite the fact that pretty much all teams cheat or bend the meaning of rules as much as they can try.

 

My 2c. 

[pathogen]

And that makes them so much worse than these big car manufacturers like Toyota, BMW, Honda, etc, who come into the sport when it pleases them, will often bitch about how unfair the regulations are, and then usually leave at very short notice, does it?

 

Who cares whether they make fizzy drinks instead of cars? Ferrari probably sells more key rings and hats than it does cars in a full year. McLaren makes a new road car once every blue moon. Williams and Sauber have been there simply to make up the numbers for donkey's years. These ideals Red Bull detractors come up with to dismiss them, while praising an elite few, simply don't exist any more.

Chapeau!

[lbennie]

'Leave me alone, I know what I'm doing' 

 

So much for red bull not having many fans huh? 

[Andrew Hope]

Red Bull has a ton of fans. Almost as many as Jesus by this point. It's just children who think Formula 1 was invented to personally entertain them that hate Red Bull doing exactly what F1 is all about (spend a lot of money) better than any other team has done in the past couple decades.

[string158]

As a drink, I hate Redbull,  cant stand the stuff.  

I know all the rest of what they do is just marketing,  but I love it.  Who else would sponsor those crazy air races / bike jumpy thingies / parachuting from space etc?  An F1 team makes sense in the mix of things they do.  The team is probably more corporate then the image makes out, but so what.  They've set themselves the objective of kicking ass at F1 and they've achieved it.  Yeah its boring, but they dont care.  You cant not respect them for what they've achieved (even tho its getting boring for spectators!)

[f1RacingForever]

You really think your average redbull drinks fan knows what redbull racing is? especially in north america?

[LoudHoward]

Red Bull the brand are good for motorsport, they pour a lot of money in and really help push the sport as a whole out there. They do the marketing for themselves, but the sport benefits as well.

 

Red Bull Racing, the team, hard not to be impressed. They're a dedicated well run outfit who are getting the results they deserve. Any of the mud slung at them is pretty easily deflected (1) Cheaty? They bend the rules like everyone else. 2) Soulless? Bleh they've been here less than 10 years, what do you want? 3) It's a drinks company? Who cares where the money comes from, but as mentioned above, the marketing they do benefits motorsport a lot, I'd be much more comfortable saying I drive for Red Bull Racing than Sahara Force India for example) and I'm looking forward to seeing how long they can keep running at the front.

 

I'm sure they have great facilities, but I don't think they're any better than any other top teams (please correct me if I'm wrong). They throw their money at people though, their success comes from who they have in their team, and the atmosphere they create for them, and how they motivate them, and I think that is something that should be applauded rather than derided. I don't think that's a characterless thing either, just the opposite.

[kenkip]

Honest question,what is sooooooo wrong with their P.R?It is not even close to the bad acting Mercedes force on Nico and Lewis,you know,those ones that they are eating sphaggeti while trying to  move a spoon with their mind.(WTF??)

Or tooned by Mclaren,trying to look like a fun team while we all know if there is an example of a dark corporate group its the Woking lot?

 

I admit some stuff is cringe worthy,that time they relesed that picture of Vettel and Webber looking dumb as hell tring to seem like best mates while we know the truth was piss poor,but seriously,are they any different to the other teams in terms of their P.R?Or to reverse the question,is their any team in the paddock that you sit back each week and say,'well that is preety good stuff.'Look at Lotus,if anything,they had the best P.R in F1.A funny twitter handle and they seemed not to take themselves too seriously,and offcourse they had Kimi!But one radio message and team members are recieving death threats and their true identity is out.Just shows how fickle F1 can be.

 

My guess is,as with everything concerned with Redbull,double standards must be applied.But in all honesty,they are doing exactly what each and every team in the paddock is doing to attain success in formula one racing.The only difference you ask?They are doing a bloody brilliant job at it.

If even Mercedes were so impresed with them in singapore to tweet them 'bloody well done',why cant the fans I wonder?

[TheUltimateWorrier]

I don't think Red Bull is the problem. It's Sebasti-a/e-n's who are to blame in all motorsport forms! Vettel, Loeb, Bourdais and Ogier!

 

Hopefully FIA will introduce a new rule next year across all motorsports; the 'no Sebasti-a/e-ns rule and the only one allowed is Buemi.

 

 

Buemi: "Hyuck, hyuck!"

Edited by TheUltimateWorrier, 03 November 2013 - 19:30.

[PayasYouRace]

Sebastians are out of fashion at Red Bull now anyway. Daniels are the way forward now 

[DanardiF1]

I don't think Red Bull is the problem. It's Sebasti-a/e-n's who are to blame in all motorsport forms! Vettel, Loeb, Bourdais and Ogier!

 

Hopefully FIA will introduce a new rule next year across all motorsports; the 'no Sebasti-a/e-ns rule and the only one allowed is Buemi.

 

 

Buemi: "Hyuck, hyuck!"

 

'But you let Sebastian Glublick in?'

[DanardiF1]

Sebastians are out of fashion at Red Bull now anyway. Daniels are the way forward now 

 

Felix da Costa is changing his name to Dantonio Felix da(n) Costa right now...

[V3TT3L]

People must realize that the Automakers tend to merge looking for synergies and it is forecsted that only 7 Big Automakers will exist in a near future.

Considering that some of then refuses to enter F1 and some were part of F1 but gave up the competition, the open wheel premium series needs investors/sponsornot related to car manufacturing.

 

Just imagine F1 without RedBull and ToroRosso. The teams replacing them would be sort of Marussias and Caterhans.

 

Long and prosper life to RedBull