Red Bull has been one of the biggest F1 success stories in the last decade, with them going from being a soft drinks company taking on Ferrari and Mercedes to now multiple world champions.
The team is one of the most successful in the modern era and has produced two of the highest rated world champions of all time in Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen.
Red Bull’s late owner Dietrich Mateschitz had a dream of winning world titles in F1 when they joined the grid in 2005, and after signing Adrian Newey they began to improve their fortunes.
Vettel would go on to achieve Red Bull’s first title success in both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ championships, which was nearly the end of their F1 endeavour according to Jaime Alguersuari when speaking on the Beyond the Grid F1 podcast.
Red Bull almost pulled out of F1 after 2010 title success
The 2009 season was seen as a big opportunity for them to achieve title success, but Brawn GP had a massive advantage with the blown diffuser that was eventually ruled legal, despite challenges from Red Bull.
It would not be until 2010 that Red Bull would finally win a title with Vettel at the wheel, which would lead the higher-ups at the company to contemplate whether it was worth continuing to spend money in the sport.
“I remember talking to a Red Bull employee at the end of 2010, after Vettel had won the title in Abu Dhabi,” said Alguersuari, who was competing with Toro Rosso at the time.
“And he was actually concerned that Red Bull might pull out a Formula 1 because Vettel winning the championship meant that they had achieved what they’d set out to do in Formula 1. Luckily, obviously, that didn’t happen, but was there a marked shift in mentality of the bosses.”
Red Bull and others feared rising costs
Red Bull was likely fearing the rise in costs associated with competing in F1 at the time, with bigger teams like Ferrari and McLaren able to spend their way out of problems.
For the privateer teams it was a lot harder to produce title success, with Red Bull one of the few successful along with Williams in the modern era.
A cost cap was discussed in 2009 for as early as the 2010 season, however, once there was a change in FIA governance it was effectively put on hold until 2017. It’s what led to Manor, Caterham and HRT to pull out of F1 and Red Bull was part of the conversation. Even though they were finding success, the cost of it was mounting even higher.
Since the 2021 season, F1 teams have been bound to a cost cap which puts a cap on the amount of money they are allowed to spend on adding performance to their car as well as restrictions to their aerodynamic testing.
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