The Formula 1 team Red Bull achieved its 100th Grand Prix victory at the 2023 Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal on Sunday. It was Max Verstappen who brought the anniversary success to the Austrian team based in Great Britain.
The first win for the Red Bull Racing team was just 14 years ago. At the 2009 Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai, a wet race, it was Sebastian Vettel who climbed onto the top step of the podium for the “Bulls” for the first time. In such a short time, no other team has achieved a double-digit number of Grand Prix victories.
This is all the more remarkable given that the Red Bull Group as a whole has operated not just one but two Formula 1 teams since 2006. The second team – today AlphaTauri – is based in Italy and originally competed as Toro Rosso.
And this second Red Bull team recorded the first victory (Grand Prix of Italy 2008 in Monza with also Sebastian Vettel as a driver) even half a year earlier than the big UK-based team, although it only appeared a year later.
“People forget how much work Red Bull has put into the sport. It’s really extraordinary,” said former Red Bull driver Mark Webber in an interview with the English-language edition of ‘Motorsport.com’.
“What they have invested in this area, in terms of their employees, in terms of the infrastructure in Milton Keynes, and what they have done, that is a testament to them,” says Webber, speaking of a “great success story”.
Mark Webber believes: Recognition as a manufacturer would be higher
That said, Webber, who drove for Red Bull himself from 2007 to 2013, believes that the team’s 100 Grand Prix victories would be even more publicly recognized if it were a factory team like Ferrari or Mercedes .
“If it was a manufacturer, maybe they would get more praise and notoriety,” Webber says of Red Bull.
“Basically it’s still a team made up of great people who’ve done a great job. They’ve built beautiful Formula 1 cars for constructors’ and drivers’ world titles and they are in many ways dominant,” says Webber.
The Red Bull cars designed by star designer Adrian Newey have now won the constructors’ championship five times and, in the hands of Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen, the drivers’ championship six times.
The winner(s) for Red Bull
By the way: Since this year, Vettel is no longer the most successful Red Bull driver, at least in terms of victories. While in the period 2009 to 2014 he brought 38 Grand Prix victories for the “Bulls” in addition to his four world championship titles, Verstappen, who has driven for Red Bull since 2016, currently has 41 victories (which puts him in the leaderboard drew level with Ayrton Senna).
Vettel’s record of 38 wins for Red Bull was surpassed by Verstappen with his win at the 2023 Monaco Grand Prix.
As far as the teams are concerned, a total of 42 teams have entered the list of winners in the history of the Formula 1 World Championship, which has been written since 1950. With 100 wins now, Red Bull is only the fifth team to have a double-digit number of wins. The other four teams: Williams with 114, Mercedes with 125, McLaren with 183 and record holder Ferrari with 241 victories. .
Starting with the 2026 Formula 1 season, Red Bull is collaborating with Ford as an engine supplier. The contract was signed before the start of the current 2023 season. Red Bull has been driving with Honda engines since 2019, although the engines in the 2022 season were not called Honda at all, but Red Bull.
Before Red Bull joined forces with Honda for the 2019 season, Renault (2007 to 2018), Ferrari (2006) and Cosworth (2005) were the engine partners of the Red Bull Racing team.