The Many Names of the Red Bull Formula 1 Team

The 1990s were a simpler time in Formula 1. If you had the money and the ties to start an F1 team, you could start an F1 team. So, it seemed only right, that former F1 World Champion Jackie Stewart should have his own racing squad.

Formed ahead of the 1997 season, the team fielded drivers including Rubens Barrichello, Johnny Herbert, Jan Magnussen and Jos Verstappen over three seasons in F1. The squad managed one win in its final year, when Herbert came out on top in the European Grand Prix at the Nürburgring.

In 1999, Ford purchased Stewart Grand Prix and announced that it would be renamed Jaguar to promote the British sports car company that it owned at the time. The team continued to run the Cosworth engines that Stuart had previously used.

During its 85 race starts in F1, Jaguar scored two podiums, and fielding drivers including Mark Webber and Eddie Irvine. The team also brought Guenther Steiner to Formula 1 as its team principal.

Perhaps the team’s most notable contribution to F1 was the story about its diamond-tipped race cars. In 2004, the team was decked out in a livery to promote the release of Ocean’s Twelve, which included a diamond on the front of each car. But, following a first lap crash, it’s reported that one of the diamonds was lost.

Following a mixed bag of results across five seasons, and the fact that it was getting little advertising out of the deal, Ford decided it was time to back out of F1. The team was purchased by energy drink firm Red Bull and Christian Horner was brought in as team principal.

For its inaugural season in F1, Red Bull fielded Scottish driver David Coulthard alongside Austrian racer Christian Klien. The team’s best results that year included fourth place finishes at the Australian Grand Prix and the European race at the Nürburgring.

For the 2006 season, Red Bull kept its driver pairing of Coulthard and Klien but swapped engine suppliers. And so, Red Bull Racing Ferrari was born. For that year, F1 mandated that all teams run V8 engines, and this brought about the team’s switch to Ferrari power.

This year saw the team score its first podium under the new ownership. It also saw technical director Adrian Newey join the team from McLaren, where his cars had won two drivers’ championships with Mika Häkkinen at the wheel.

Another year, another engine change. This time, Red Bull dropped its Ferrari power units in favor of a switch to Renault power, after the French team secured two consecutive teams and drivers championships in F1.

It was also in 2007 that Red Bull welcomed Australian driver Mark Webber into the fold, who partnered with Coulthard for three seasons.

Red Bull brought the ‘racing’ back to its name in 2009, and with it came the team’s most successful incarnation to date. The squad finished the 2009 season in second place, thanks to wins from both Webber and new partner, Sebastian Vettel.

Between 2009 and 2015, the team would go on to win an incredible 50 races, including nine consecutive wins for Vettel in 2013. The squad also took home four consecutive Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships.

For 2016, Red Bull decided it didn’t want to be powered by Renault engines anymore, and instead took engines from a fancy watch maker. That’s not actually what happened, instead it bought engines from Renault then re-badged them as Tag Heuer power units in a sponsorship deal with the brand. It was all following a fallout between Renault and Red Bull over the performance of its engines in the turbo-hybrid era.

In the Mercedes-dominated 2016 and 2017 seasons, Red Bull managed just five wins between its drivers, Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen.

In 2018, the team changed names again thanks to a new sponsorship deal. Eager to get its foot in the Formula 1 door, British car maker Aston Martin was announced as the title sponsor for Red Bull for the 2018 season. The deal saw Red Bull plaster its cars with Aston Martin logos, and allowed technical director Adrian Newey to work with the British company to design a road car, the Aston Martin Valkyrie.

During this incarnation of the team, it switched engine suppliers away from Renault in 2018 to Honda in 2019.

Despite having raced with Honda engines since 2019, Red Bull didn’t change its name to Red Bull Racing Honda until last year. The move came about as Aston Martin switched allegiances after Lawrence Stroll, the owner of the Racing Point F1 team, purchased a stake in the car maker. As such, Racing Point became Aston Martin for the 2021 season.

This all meant that Red Bull had a chance to showcase its stupidly quick Honda power unit for the 2021 season, which was also the Japanese firm’s last year as an engine supplier in the sport. So, it’s only right that it should also be the year the team finally returned to winning ways and won the Drivers’ Championship, albeit in mighty suspect conditions.

For the 2022 season, Formula 1 rolled out a massive overhaul of its sporting and technical regulations. And that meant it was time for a massive overhaul of the Red Bull team. I’m joking, it got a new sponsor and added its logos to wherever a Honda logo had previously been.

Oracle is an American computing company that specializes in exciting things like database software and customer relationship management programs. So far, it’s proving to be a good year to sponsor Red Bull as it currently leads both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships while rival Ferrari continues to hamper all its chances of mounting a significant title fight.