Red Bull have won the constructors’ championship for the third year in a row.
Second place for Sebastian Vettel in the United States Grand Prix confirmed their championship victory.
“It’s incredible for the whole team to have won a third consecutive world championship,” said team principal Christian Horner. “The constructors’ is what we use to measure ourselves against our competitors and, for every member of the team, it’s how we gauge our performance.
“The drivers’ obviously has the prestige and public following but within the team they carry equal importance. So, to have achieved a consecutive third world championship, which only three other teams in the history of the sport have achieved, puts us into a very elite group and having done it in such a short space of time is testimony to all the members of the team.
“That’s all the hard work, the long hours and dedication from every department. It’s a very proud moment for every single member of the team and Red Bull.”
Chief technical officer Adrian Newey praised his team’s success: “It’s been an amazing year. To achieve the hat-trick is a tremendous tribute to the whole team.
“It shows we’ve managed to keep our standards up and keep consistency. The hard work, the dedication, the talent of the people back in Milton Keynes – that’s what this is all about. I hope they are celebrating and having a drink tonight.
“We are always thinking how we can improve the car and what we can do in the coming races. It’s been a difficult year and unfortunately my pre-season concerns proved to be right. Having developed the car around side exhaust technology for the last two years, losing that was a bigger step back for us than our competitors and it’s been quite a difficult evolution to get the car back to where we wanted.
“Getting a third title shows we’re not a flash in the pan; we’ve managed to stay at the top, to understand the car and maintain consistency which is not easy at all.
“The first title was amazing because when I left McLaren for Red Bull, it was a bit of a career gamble, I was joining with a dream of perhaps trying to win races in the future with the team that I’d been involved with more or less from the start. To actually fulfil that dream and to achieve three titles has been amazing. We can all have dreams, but to do it is something special. It’s not just me personally but it’s the whole team and this is a tribute to everyone within it.”
Red Bull have become only the fifth team in F1 history to win three constructors’ titles. Never before has a team which had not previously held the constructors’ title won its first three in consecutive seasons:
Rank | Team | Championships |
---|---|---|
1 | Ferrari | 16 |
2 | Williams | 9 |
3 | McLaren | 8 |
4 | Lotus | 7 |
5 | Red Bull | 3 |
=6 | Cooper | 2 |
=6 | Brabham | 2 |
=6 | Renault | 2 |
=9 | Vanwall | 1 |
=9 | BRM | 1 |
=9 | Matra | 1 |
=9 | Tyrrell | 1 |
=9 | Benetton | 1 |
=9 | Brawn | 1 |
2012 United States Grand Prix
Image © Red Bull/Getty images
Eggry (@eggry)
18th November 2012, 20:44
They suffered some reliability issue but Mclaren is worse and Ferrari is slower. Very deserved.
suka (@suka)
18th November 2012, 20:51
I never doubted their comback from the first half of the season; hell afterall, Ferrari made one, why not Adrian Newey wouldn’t,oops, I mean RBR.
Congratulations to RBR until 2014 when Formula 1 is developing other parts of the car besides exausts and wings.
stirper
19th November 2012, 0:54
+1
JCost (@jcost)
19th November 2012, 8:37
@suka
I like your avatar :)
suka (@suka)
19th November 2012, 10:49
Thanks, Jacques has been my avatar since I’ve joined the blog a couple of years back.
Calum (@calum)
18th November 2012, 20:51
Well deserved, the 5th best F1 team ever in a period of 8 years. £1bn well spent! :D
crr917 (@crr917)
19th November 2012, 0:13
beating the “we own F1” Ferrari and the “we are better than a lemonade company” McLaren is priceless :D
suka (@suka)
18th November 2012, 20:55
I expect RBR to dominate next season as well but Mercedes, Ferrari and Mclaren should take over the top in 2014.
raymondu999 (@raymondu999)
19th November 2012, 4:06
@suka if anything – RBR are more likely to dominate in 2014 than in 2013. Regulation changes are Newey’s specialty.
suka (@suka)
19th November 2012, 7:19
Newey openly spoke his fears recently that 2014 would be competition of the engines (alternators:)).
Let’s wait and see.
Chalky (@chalky)
19th November 2012, 9:32
Maybe that was a slip of the tongue so Lewis would leave McLaren ;)
Britty (@brittyf1)
19th November 2012, 10:30
+ 1 ! And , with Newey, Vettel will be in Red Bull Racing until 2014 , soo , waiting for next years and see what happens …
but I know anything about Webber ..
paul flinders
18th November 2012, 21:05
Brill drive by Lewis, unstoppable when in this form. Just wish the car had been more reliable this year.hope Ross Brawn can give him a good car next year else its a waste of a world class driver’s talent.great overtake by the way .dont know what seb was moaning about..
David Hoops (@rb67)
18th November 2012, 21:41
Great overtake? Easy DRS overtake. A great overtake would’ve been in one if the twisty bits. Still a great drive by Lewis, credit where it’s due. Just wish they’d do away with DRS.
lightsout (@lightsout)
18th November 2012, 22:38
Easy? Well Vettel didn’t make it easy, but he wouldn’t have got past otherwise which is always the issue with two very closely matched cars. Also if they’d geared the Redbull better he may not have gotten past at all!
mnmracer (@mnmracer)
18th November 2012, 21:16
Age 39, Christian Horner is the youngest F1 team boss in history to become 3x World Constructor’s Champion.
Slr (@slr)
18th November 2012, 21:18
Back in 2008 when Red Bull were a midfield team, I never would have thought they would have won three titles by the end of 2012.
Antonio Nartea (@tony031r)
18th November 2012, 21:20
There’s no other team that would have deserved the title this season. The way Red Bull managed to understand and bring the car to its current level of development is worthy of a WCC, no question there. They simply have the best package out there and they had it for 2 years before as well.
Well done to them and Newey adding another one to the shelves.
Max Jacobson (@vettel1)
18th November 2012, 21:31
Thoroughly deserved by Red Bull, what a birthday present for Horner! It’d be even better for them if they wrap up the driver’s championship next week!
Yoshisune (@yobo01)
18th November 2012, 21:38
Red Bull has achieved something amazing. Three consecutive constructors’ titles is not easy for anyone, much more difficult for such a young team. The historic teams can’t keep up with them since 2009, that’s unbelievable.
Jason (@jason12)
18th November 2012, 21:50
Congratulations to Red Bull. I also love the relaxed culture in that team.
Broom (@)
18th November 2012, 22:24
Well done Red-Bull. Classic tale of super rich drinks company, making it big to market an unhealthy drink!
brny666
18th November 2012, 22:34
As opposed to other super rich companies making it to the top by being sponsored by other super rich companies to market their unhealthy products? Go watch cross country running or something.
Antonio Nartea (@tony031r)
18th November 2012, 23:50
@brum55 – So how about back in the day when more than half the cars in the field were sponsored by tobacco companies? Does that make McLaren or Ferrari or Williams or whoever else less worthy of the titles they’ve won so far? Should we erase those out of the history of the sport because some people might think there are bad morals associated with those events? Or, how do we make this right?
That’s something that simply doesn’t matter when it comes to a sporting event. And even if it did, Red Bull getting marketed through F1 is still small-talk compared to McDonalds or Coca-Cola getting marketed through the Olympics.
This is just barking at a particular tree out of a forest of millions. Get a grip, please!
Jay Menon (@jaymenon10)
19th November 2012, 0:34
Sure mate…how about all the alcohol sponsorship in F1? or the gambling? fast foods? other energy drinks…I dont see how banning tobacco sponsorship but allowing the aforementioned is not hypocrisy. Its not just F1, its the world over…it almost seemed like the all the world decided to pick on something..and that happened to be smoking…and ganged up against it.
Cigarettes may cause a substantial amount of deaths each year…but alcohol, gambling and fast foods contribute many other social issues in addition to deaths..so I never understood the logic.
Broom (@)
19th November 2012, 2:05
Its not so much the fact its unhealthy. Its just that it’ll be disappointing for F1 if more global super corporations start buying current teams and winning. Imagine if Williams get bought by Starbucks or if Sauber get bought by KFC and they start challenging Red-Bull. It will make a mockery of the sport. They both need the money otherwise they wouldn’t be constantly searching for pay-drivers.
Teams like Williams, Sauber and Ferrari, Mercedes, Lotus & McLaren all have motor racing pedigree. They had a dream of creating great cars and winning, not using F1 as a means to promote something entirely unrelated to it.
For some reason that doesn’t sit well with me. I expected Red-Bull to be a flash in the pan but they may go on to start something that will change F1 forever. Its similar with football when Abramovich bought Chelsea. No one knew what impact he’d make. Now football is more money orientated than ever with teams like City and PSG hoovering up some of the best talent in the world.
Fact of the matter is Red-Bull are more than just another manufacturer, they may revolutionize the sport and change it into something very different to what it currently is today.
Bob (@bobthevulcan)
19th November 2012, 5:01
Mateschitz is the party more concerned with the financial aspect of the RBR operation. I would think that winning races and championships is still the primary goal and driving force of Horner, Newey, Vettel and team.
Still, one hopes that F1 does not descend into NASCAR levels of commercialization – cars named after sponsors with no mention of the team, races named after sponsors with no mention of the venue, even naming the entire championship after the sponsor…
PaulT (@pault)
19th November 2012, 5:26
@brum55 In a perfect world, all of the teams would be owned by people or companies with wholesome motorsport-relevant reasons for owning them. But it’s not perfect, and the money to run many of them has to come from other sources.
Red Bull money, for example, sustains four cars on the grid. Without it, we might just be down to 18 cars (assuming HRT doesn’t survive the Christmas break) instead of the 26 provided for in the regs.
Williams sold to Starbucks? KFC owning Sauber? OK with me if it became necessary for those teams to survive. And their motor racing pedigree won’t disappear just because their biggest sponsor (sometimes called the owner) sells coffee or chicken.
Antonio Nartea (@tony031r)
19th November 2012, 13:05
@brum55 – You’re missing out on one aspect: Red Bull HAS a motor racing pedigree, and had one before getting involved in F1. They established themselves as motor-racing supporters and key players through V8 Supercars, Rallying, Rally Raid, Enduro and a whole other lot of competitions way before they started to make an impact on F1.
I like to think that they are involved with F1 mainly because of the sport. And the fact that they have Newey and Vettel and the lot on board and they have crushing results for 3 years now is justifying their marketing campaign through F1. Ergo, they have results and they make the most out of them from a marketing perspective. Perfectly logical to me.
Saying Red Bull is bad for the sport from a corporate-involvement perspective is a bit hypocritical in the light of their current performances and while taking into account what Ferrari did in the 2000-2004 era. Remember, Red Bull ran in the midfield for 4-5 years without having any outstanding results. No one had an issue with them back then. Why? Because no one knew wheter Red Bull will make it as a contender or not. 3 consecutive world titles were not in plan back then. I’m not even sure they were thinking as far as one single WDC or WCC title. Now that they did, all sorts of questions start to pop up, with hindsight of course.
And from a financial perspective, if you have something against Red Bull, you must have something against Ferrari and McLaren as well, as their budgets for one season in F1 are quite similar in terms of numbers.
xjr15jaaag (@xjr15jaaag)
30th December 2012, 15:51
And RBR started sponsoring cars from the early 2000s/late 90s is believe.
Also, it helps their image as they are also involved with just about every other extreme sport out there.
OOliver
18th November 2012, 22:35
This was one championship Mclaren threw away.
They completely ignored it at the beginning, then tried to make a late charge, yet still managed to fumble their way out of reckoning.
It pays to be focused.
brny666
19th November 2012, 9:26
+1. it makes it all the sweeter for the drinks company
Dane (@n0b0dy100)
18th November 2012, 22:36
I still think McLaren had the faster car over the majority of the season. They just threw away so many opportunities this year. It’s hard to believe Lewis would leave if he were still in the title fight.
OOliver
19th November 2012, 9:56
If Mclaren had the fastest car, then both their drivers will have been qualifying close to each other like you find the RBR drivers doing very often.
If you are going by straight line speed, that means nothing because a team can easily chose to focus on downforce or straight line speed.
Mclaren have a reasonably fast car, but one that isn’t consistently fast, even in a single race weekend.
Even after getting past Vettel, Hamilton couldn’t build a gap to Vettel.
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
18th November 2012, 22:50
Congratulations to them! I’m sure they’ll win it next year especially since Ferrari are now the only ones that can challenge them.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
19th November 2012, 0:20
Impressive. Even if they have the money, Toyota did too and never got higher than 4th.
It’s great to see a team working hard for it, and succeed. Well done to them.
Commendatore (@commendatore)
19th November 2012, 0:21
Congrats to Newey! Well deserved.
dot_com (@dot_com)
19th November 2012, 0:27
Congrats to Red Bull. Credit where it’s due – they have certainly made the best car this year.
GeeMac (@geemac)
19th November 2012, 9:22
Congratulations to Red Bull Racing, they’ve deserved this, they really have. 3 Constructor’s Championships on the trot is testament to the hard word that was done in Milton Keynes to rebuild the team Ford got off to a great start (as Stewart Grand Prix) and nearly ruined (as Jaguar).
Love him or loath him, Christian Horner has done a fantastic job in turning Red Bull Racing into world beaters. He’s assembled a great team and seemingly created a great atmosphere and culture in the team…even if their team radio broadcasts after race victories are very predictable these days! :p
caci99 (@)
19th November 2012, 12:01
Congratulations to RedBull. They deserve the tittle. This one has been a close fight and they won it. McLaren looked the team that could have won it, but they lost it to their own fault, while RedBull rarely made a mistake.
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
19th November 2012, 13:09
Well done Red Bull! Thoroughly deserved and their consistency has paid off. They’ve worked hard for it and it is great to see someone come in and upset the balance between Ferrari and McLaren. I hope they go from strength to strength and that the established teams can learn something from them.