13 replies to this topic

[GenJackRipper]

Red Bull also owns Torro Rosso as we all know.
Does that pay of?

I just had a brilliant idea; if Ferrari would do something similair, they could revive Alfa Romeo as a F1 team.

Wouldn't that be just awesome?

[Jbleroi]

Next year Ferrari will have Haas as their "unofficial" satelite team

[BlinkyMcSquinty]

It does for driver training. Red Bull get to audition prospective drivers, and under true race conditions. And if they get to last more than one year, the drivers accumulate invaluable experience.

 

For any other race team, to take in a new driver coming up from a lesser series, there is always the possibility they do not adapt. It is a risk. But with Red Bull, there is no guessing, any Red Bull drivers have to come through Toro Rosso, and they have been in true Formula One conditions.

 

The Ferrari method is different than the rest, they only accept proven quality drivers, cherry-pick the best by dangling huge salaries in front of them.

[Gilles4Ever]

They also have the ace when it comes to signing young talent, Red Bull has the STR race seat as a carrot, at this stage no team can beat that.

[Requiem84]

What would be the budget for TR per year? 120 million? 

 

I'm sure that a very very large part of this budget is funded by Red Bull / Mateschitz. 

 

It is quite an expensive investment to have a team for selecting and developping junior drivers. I'm not sure many other manufacturers would be willing to pay that amount of cash to get their associated drivers a race seat.

 

There must be another element for RB to keep funding TR... can't imagine the driver incentive is the only reason. 

[noikeee]

I think it's an absurdly expensive investment just for drivers, and wouldn't make any sense if it was exclusively about them.

 

But it's not. It's another place to train staff (not just drivers), to get additional wind tunnel hours (even if they can't put the RBR car in the tunnel there's still some benefit from trying alternative solutions), additional data, additional marketing exposure for their brand, and above all, additional lobbying power.

 

I'm a bit suspicious all things added it still doesn't pay off, but they won 4 championships in a row whilst owning Toro Rosso so that kinda vindicates the decision.

[LuckyStrike1]

Don't forget the bargaining chip having two teams gives Red Bull when it comes to negotiate revenue shares with FOM. No wonder the two teams with the best contracts with FOM are Ferrari (history and brand) and Red Bull (putting four cars on the grid, paying for a race, sponsorship, brand) 

 

If I remember correctly it the decision for Red Bull to buy Minardi and turn it into Toro Rosso wasn't so much part of a long term strategy as it was almost a favor to Bernie for not losing a team at a crucial time and be more involved in the sport to buy favors and they got Minardi quite cheap. 

[SenorSjon]

And they can threaten to leave, taking 20% of the grid with them.

[BlinkyMcSquinty]

The big picture is interesting. Red Bull is the largest energy drink company in the world, and have a massive marketing program. They own many sports teams, sponsor many events, endorsements, their presence is pervasive. In the world of motorsports many racers are sponsored by them, from rallycross to karting to Pikes Peak.

 

 

For any young racer aspiring for Formula One, Red Bull has a pyramid program that starts in karting and goes all the way up to their Formula One Red Bull team. The thing is, Red Bull has their hooks in them from a young age, locked in under contract. By the time they get to a Red Bull owned racing team in Formula Renault 3.5, GP2 or F3, Red Bull know all about them, have them under contract, and all fighting like mad to get to the big show. It is a farm system that works very well.

 

While all other Formula One teams are shopping/poaching drivers, Red Bull keep everything in-house. They also keep their driver salaries low, with a very low salary and a healthy performance bonus payment. When Vettel won his first WDC he was being paid less than a milltion dollars a year. Only when he left to Ferrari did he finally get a huge salary.

 

STR is just a component of a massive farm system for Red Bull, gathering up prospective drivers, testing and advancing them until only the very best arrive at the Formula One level.

[redreni]

I don't mind big teams being able to place drivers and technical staff in a smaller team and still retain them under contract. But I think it's important to keep to the expectation that each team has to be a constructor, out of fairness to the other small teams and as a way of ensuring there is meaningful design and development work for the technical staff in those teams to work on.

 

The fact that F1 will increasingly rely on the existence of STR and, from next year, Haas to maintain grid numbers, means that it's hard to see the FIA being prepared to risk enforcing the regulations pertaining to technical partnerships, ownership of IP etc, with sufficient zeal for my liking. And even if the rules are enforced properly, they still allow a lot of stuff to be bought in which I'd prefer people to have to design and build themselves. It's not really the FIA's fault; the FIA has been backed into a corner by the manufacturers and the commercial rights holder helping themselves to an ever increasing share of the pie at the expense of the smaller teams.

 

Personally I'd be surprised if we don't end up with customer cars, either by way of a decision taken openly, or simply as a result of things drifting further and further in that direction.

Edited by redreni, 09 June 2015 - 13:08.

[CurbPainter]

I've read somewhere a few years ago TR worked with a budget of about 80 Million Dollars, but Cepsa is also a major contributor in that budget....my guess is, RB makes about 50 Million Dollars of that budget, maybe even a little bit less.

 

So you can pay well known experienced drivers a lot a year, or just pay talents much less and spend it on a junior team, but you can get a bit more data coming from your junior team also...I don't think it makes in all such a big difference.

[kevinracefan]

Red Bull doesn't own the whole team. it doesn't fund it totally, either..

 

STR has a LOT of small sponsors.. they pay their way without a lot of Dietrich's money.. I once read it to be in the range of $40 mil.. of course there's only a handful of people who KNOW the true number...

[sopa]

It sure is an extra cost to have an extra team. Just like owning/financing a single team is already a cost, regardless of potential marketing benefits. That's why there is not really a queue of companies in the world to try to buy an F1 team. It is very expensive and only selected few can see a point in it. IIRC Red Bull has even tried to sell Toro Rosso throughout the years, but without much success...

 

However, Red Bull is one of those, who is a really big successful company and has the might not just to take on F1, but take it on on a really big scale. So they have invested to become a major power of F1. Having two teams is part of the big game to be a major power, which - as mentioned - includes drivers, politics, marketing and car development/information sharing.

[sopa]

Red Bull also owns Torro Rosso as we all know.
Does that pay of?

I just had a brilliant idea; if Ferrari would do something similair, they could revive Alfa Romeo as a F1 team.

Wouldn't that be just awesome?

 

I have sometimes wondered about a junior Scuderia team in F1, also painted in red.

 

But unlike Red Bull, I think Fiat is not prepared to finance the effort of Alfa Romeo or whichever other brand to enter F1. IIRC they already finance Ferrari on a relatively small scale, with Ferrari getting a lions share of its budget from Santander/Philip Morris and of course the famous 100 M from FOM.

 

Mercedes is another one, but I think they are pretty satisfied with supplying power units to other teams and having a co-operation on a small scale rather than buying another team.

 

I think the last other notable "two-team" situation was with Super Aguri, which basically was Honda's second team.