Red Bull eye 200 after winning 100th grand prix
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The seven team members of the Red Bull Racing team who have been present for all 100 race wins, including team principal Christian Horner (fourth from left).
PHOTO: AFP
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MONTREAL – As Red Bull celebrated a landmark 100th Formula One win at the Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday,
Now at 100 wins, the thirst for victory remains unquenched. Red Bull are just the fifth team to reach that milestone, joining Ferrari (242), McLaren (183), Mercedes (125) and Williams (114).
Only Ferrari have crossed over 200 and that number is the new target mentioned by Horner and the team’s double world champion Max Verstappen, who delivered the victory in Montreal.
“We’ve broken into a fairly elite club,” said Horner. “It’s phenomenal and we’re only just going really...
“100 is a lot, but 100 wins is 27 per cent of all the races we’ve entered that we’ve won and that’s an incredible, truly incredible statistic.
“We’re still young – we achieved that first victory in 2009. Obviously have achieved a lot in that period and hopefully we can keep going and achieve another 100.”
While the wins have flowed like water from a tap with Red Bull drivers taking top spot on the podium in 18 of the last 19 grands prix, including all eight this season, success was not always part of the team’s DNA.
After the energy drink company took over Jaguar in 2005 and became Red Bull, it would be four more years before Sebastian Vettel gave them their first victory at the China Grand Prix.
“I remember collecting the trophy that day, getting on the plane to go home that evening and thinking, ‘Well, at least we’ve won one. If nothing else happens, we’ve won a race’,” recalled Horner. “But it felt so good, you want to feel that again.
“Who would have thought that 99 victories later, we would achieve our century.
“It’s a landmark for the team. It’s a testament to the dedication and hard work of all the people within the company.”
As the wins have grown, so has Red Bull’s ambition, with Horner taking the opportunity after Sunday’s race to issue the ominous warning that his team are capable of winning every race this season. There are 14 stops remaining.
If Red Bull are to reach 200 wins, Verstappen is likely to be a big part of that success, as he was in the first 100.
Just 25, Verstappen is already a double world champion, his victory in Montreal the 41st of his career, bringing him equal with the late Brazilian triple world champion Ayrton Senna.
He trails only four-time world champions Alain Prost (51) and Vettel (53), seven-time champions Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton (91 and 103 respectively).
He said: “I never expected to be on these kind of numbers for myself so we have to just keep enjoying it and working hard, but this is a great day for us.”
The Dutchman led from lights to flag as he came home 9.570 seconds ahead of Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, 41, with Hamilton, 38, finishing third for Mercedes.
Charles Leclerc was fourth ahead of his Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez in the second Red Bull with Alex Albon taking an excellent seventh in his revamped Williams.
“What we are witnessing with Max is the emergence of another mega talent,” said Horner. “You can start to talk about him in the same sentence as the greats now.
“Having matched Ayrton Senna, I thought the podium today was very representative of the last couple of decades of F1 with Max, Fernando and Lewis up there.
“He just keeps delivering at such a high level.”
The next race on July 2 is in Spielberg, Red Bull’s home race and also the home of their founder Dietrich Mateschitz, who died in 2022.
Horner said: “Going there with 100 victories behind us, it is quite fitting that the next race is the Austrian Grand Prix.” REUTERS, AFP
