From Stewart Grand Prix to Red Bull Racing #Blogpost

From the old Stewart team founded by Jackie Stewart to one of the most successful teams of the modern era.

Stewart Grand Prix (1997 - 1999)

Stewart Grand Prix was team that competed in Formula One from 1997 until 1999. It was founded by three time F1 world champion Sir Jackie Stewart.
The 1999 season was by far the team’s best season with Johnny Herbert taking their only win and Barichello taking their only pole position. They finished the season 4th in the Constructors’ Championship.

It all started back in 1988 when Jackie Stewart bought the Gary Evans Motorsport Team and transformed it to Stewart Grand Prix. They competed in the 1989 Formula 3 championship. Their first season wasn’t that great with only one win. In 1990 the team expanded and moved to Milton Keynes. They divided the team in three sections, Formula 3000, Formula 3 and Formula Vauxhall Lotus. The team enjoyed huge successes by winning 12 titles and 119 races across several categories.
After this the team decided to join Formula One.

1997
The team’s first F1 car, called the Stewart SF01 was driven Rubens Barichello and Jan Magnussen.
The team scored its only points that season when Barichello came second in the rain-effected Monaco Grand Prix.
The car’s reliability proved to be awful as the car only had eight classified finishes out of a possible thirty-four.

1998
Half way through the season they decided to replace Magnussen with Jos Verstappen.
All three drivers struggled a lot during the season and they were only able to score five points.

1999
The 1999 was by far the best season for the team. They hired Johnny Herbert to replace Verstappen.
Barichello managed to secure three podium finishes and Herbert got the team’s only win. This was enough for a fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship.

End the end of the 1999 season the team got bought by Ford and renamed to Jaguar Racing.

Jaguar Racing F1 Team (2000 - 2004)

For their first season in 2000 they hired Eddie Irvine and Johnny Herbert. They often found them self fighting in the midfield but only managed to score points on two occasions.

For the 2001 season they switched to Michelin tires. The car was able to fight for points more often and even scored a podium at Monaco. The next season they again managed to get one podium finish, this time at Italy.

the 2003 season was by far their best season where they managed to score eight point finishes.

At the end of the 2004 season got bought my drink company Red Bull and it was renamed to Red Bull Racing.

Red Bull Racing (2005 - Present)

Red Bull Racing is one of the two Formula One teams owned by beverage company Red Bull, the other one being Scuderia Toro Rosso.

2005
For their first season as a constructor they hired former McLaren driver David Coulthard as their lead driver. For their second driver they used two of their young sponsored drivers: Christian Klien and Vitantonio Liuzzi. At first it was announced that Klien and Liuzzi would swap duty every four races, but in the end Liuzzi only drove four races.
Their first season was a big succes, as they were in 6th place for most of the season before they got overtaken by the fast improving BAR Hondas. They were able to score points consistently for the post part of their first season. And they even managed to get a double points finish in their debut race in Australia.

2006
The 2006 season was again a great succes with the team still scoring points consistently. Just like their predecessors Stewart and Jaguar they scored their first podium finish at Monaco. The team ended up in 7th place in the Constructors’ Championship.

Scuderia Toro Rosso

At the end of the 2005 season Red Bull announced that they had purchased the Mindardi team and that they would change the name to Scuderia Toro Rosso (Italian for Team Red Bull)
The team was meant as a B-team for Red Bull Racing, allowing the company to work with more drivers. Since 2009 every new Red Bull driver drove for Toro Rosso first.
At the 2008 Italian Grand Prix Sebastian Vettel took Toro Rosso’s first and so far only win. Which meant that Toro Rosso got their first win before Red Bull did.

Red Bull took their first win the following year in 2009, again with Sebastian Vettel. Helping the team secure second place in the Constructors’ championship.

Red Bull Dominance
In between 2010 and 2013 the team won all four Constructors’ and Drivers’ Championships. All four of the Drivers’ Championships being won by Sebastian Vettel. In that time period the team won 41 Grand Prixs.
The team did see some controversy when both drivers hit each other during the 2010 Turkish GP. Webber was able to continue and finished third, but Vettel was forced to retire.
There was more controversy when Vettel won the 2013 Malaysian GP after breaking the ‘Multi 21’ protocol.

2014
Things went downhill in 2014 when defending worldchampion Sebastian Vettel was unable to win a race that season and he dropped to fifth in the standings. Daniel Ricciardo who came over from Toro Rosso to replace the retiring Mark Webber won three races to secure third in the standings.
Red Bull slipped back the second in the Constructors’ Championship, almost 300 points behind Mercedes.

2015
For the 2015 season the team slipped back ever further and ended up in fith place, unable to win a race. Daniil Kvyat who replaced Vettel came seventh in the standings, just ahead of teammate Daniel Ricciardo.
During the season the team only managed three podium finishes.

2016
The beginning of the 2016 season didn’t seem to go much better as the team was only able to score one podium finish in the opening four rounds.
The team decided to promote Max Verstappen to Red Bull and demote Kvyat back to Toro Rosso after he crashed into Vettel twice on the opening lap of the Russian Grand Prix. Verstappen would go on to win his first race for the team.
From that moment onwards things were improving a lot as they were often able to fight with Ferrari and Mercedes. Later in the season they overtook Ferrari in the Constructors’ Championship to take second place, only behind Mercedes. The team ended up winning two racing that year, one for Verstappen at the Spanish GP and one for Ricciardo at the Malaysian GP.

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Thanks for reading

– Marijn M