Red Bull “devastated” by theft of 60 trophies

2014 F1 season

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Over 60 trophies were stolen from the factory of Red Bull’s Formula One team in Milton Keynes in the early hours of this morning.

Team principal Christian Horner said the team were “devastated” by what he called a “serious factory break in”.

Thames Valley Police said a group of six masked men in dark clothing used a 4×4 vehicle to smash into the front of the factory at 1:30am. A second vehicle was used also in the break-in, and both had foreign number plates.

“The break-in caused significant damage and was very upsetting for our night officers who were on duty at the time,” said Horner. “The offenders took items that not only did not belong to them, but which represented the efforts of a group of dedicated, hard-working individuals.”

Horner added the team were “perplexed” at the theft. “The value to the team is of course extraordinarily high due to the sheer hard work and effort that went into winning each and every one,” he said.

“But their intrinsic value is low; they would be of little benefit to those outside of the team and, in addition to that, many of the trophies on display were replicas.”

Horner added: “The actions of these men mean it’s likely that we will have to make our site less accessible in the future, which will be unfair on the hundreds of fans that travel to visit our factory each year to see our trophies and our Formula One car.”

“We would like to appeal to anyone who knows any information on the whereabouts of these trophies or the offenders involved to contact Thames Valley Police.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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82 comments on “Red Bull “devastated” by theft of 60 trophies”

  1. Stroked & Blown
    6th December 2014, 12:22

    Sebastian, where were you on the night of December 5th?

    1. Well most likely Seb got his much loved trophies back!

  2. Hmmm…….four masked men? I hope they were not wearing RED!! :P

    On a serious note though, this is a serious breach and you definitely feel for the team. It’s indeed their hard work and efforts over the last 6 seasons to have achieved it and like Horner mentioned, it’s intrinsic value would be very low to the outside world but it’s a pride for the team.

    1. Well, @neelv27, AUTOSPORT have reported the vehicles used in the break-in had foreign number plates!

    2. I’m trying to feel sorry for Christian Horner, but I just can’t.

      A source close to a Red Bull can tells me one of the gang may have visited the crime scene on Monday, arriving in an Italian-registered vehicle, and has even been photographed in the trophy room. CCTV footage (not available on Youtube, but due for DVD release just after Christmas) appears to show a figure wearing a racing helmet, but it appears to be a different helmet in each camera shot.

      1. Apparently one of the thieves also did a number of doughnuts as they were leaving.

        1. Was also heard screaming, “Yes! We did it!!” (In Italian, of course)

          1. Was he waving his finger in the air as well?

          2. “Tough luck”.

          1. Hahaha excellent thread, the images that came to mind.. Hilarious.

  3. That’s rough on those in the team, who worked hard to earn those trophies.

  4. Wow, I just can’t get my head around that…

  5. On TV a lot of the trophies they dish out these days look pretty cheap and nasty. But what sort of metals are they made out of? Would the thieves get much for them after melting them down?

    1. Hightly doubt it…. for the risk they took, it’s probably not worthy.

      1. “cause some man just wanna see the world BURN” – quoted from truth.

  6. Anonymous tip… It was Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, Paddy Lowe, Toto Wolff, Nicky Lauda and Andy Cowell.

    1. ColdFly F1 (@)
      6th December 2014, 16:00

      @peartree – once more Hamilton drove into the wrong ‘pit box’, should have been McLaren’s trophy chamber.

    2. It was a joke since it was 6 men who rob their trophies. I don’t know why people keep saying that it was 4 men that did that. It was 6, the 6 figures from Mercedes F1.

  7. Horner is blackmailing again! Take advantage and lock him in, the police is right over Milton Keynes now.

  8. This just seems like an incredibly pointless robbery. The trophies themselves cannot be worth the effort and risk involved! The only explanation that I can think of is they are “stealing to order” for a collector. But so so sad nonetheless as every member of Red Bull Racing would look at those trophies with pride, and maybe some even used them as a source of encouragement when things were not going so good this year.

    Hope that they are recovered soon.

    1. ColdFly F1 (@)
      6th December 2014, 16:03

      “stealing to order” for a collector

      That’s what happens when F1 appeals to Rolex wearing, UBS Banking old people!
      @tthwaite

      1. @coldfly Comment of the year!!!

  9. It’s sad that these four dopes have no concept of gaining rewards from hard work. I guess the good news is that the trophies are mere trinkets for Red Bulls well earned achievements; no-one can steal their amazing record.

    1. Hear hear.

  10. Easy. Vettel’s career stats: 66 podiums. :)

  11. I bet they left them stupid Santander trophies behind

  12. Was the 4×4 a Mercedes?

  13. Well at least it’s opened up a bit of space on that wall…

  14. Really? Red Bull doesn’t have competent security? Kind of explains their fall from grace this year.

    1. 3 wins and second in the constructor’s championship. Yep, huge fall from grace there.

      1. 9 consecutive wins (13 wins), WDC, and WCC in 2013. I think it is.

        That said the security does surprise me.

    2. Security generally consists of someone to call emergency services in the event of them being needed, not a heavily armed swat-team.

  15. a pointless theft, its not like you can flog them at a car boot sale it must have been kim jong un he’s behind all skulduggery these days

  16. Wow that is so low!

  17. something seems off about this, those trophies very few if any of them i imagine are made of precious metals, as christian said i imagine around half would’ve been replicas anyway as they’d have been gifted to drivers and various members ala seb and newey getting cars. And for the ones that are real and are valuable they’re going to be so hard to fence, any sports fans whether it be football, f1, cricket, whatever, are a passionate bunch, you’re going to struggle to find people who would reconcile buying something they know was stolen because they’re a fan of the sport it came from and people who aren’t fans would care to buy them anyway. All seems very odd, unless the crims just weren’t particularly smart/ they went after something else and this was just a distraction.

  18. as secretive as F1 is, you’re telling me that one can drive up to the front door of the Red Bull factory and not be challenged by any security?

    1. @zot1953 there aren’t many places at which you can’t… what should a security guard do anyways? except call the police

      1. I think Tom ment gates of some sort…

  19. Here I am, wishing it had happened to McLaren instead so I could make a Ron Dennis joke about it.

    1. Do you think is a coincidence it doesn’t happen to Mclaren? Dennis has sharks with laser beams on their heads inside that Paragon lake.

  20. Personally, I’m devastated about losing two teams who have never won a trophy and are having their property held by administrators as they don’t have a multi-billion pound coorperation throwing money at them.

    I appreciate that the trophies are symbols of hard work, intellegence, team work, competence, dedication and professionalism. I’m very sorry, but I simply can’t feel for a team that had the money to build and buy what they needed to be in the position they were. Especially when teams are fighting harder to get the money just to compete – forget scoring points or podiums!

    1. Ferrari had also the money to do it but they didnt….

  21. Peppermint-Lemon (@)
    6th December 2014, 15:20

    Disgraceful that some people in this world feel they have entitlement to take other peoples belongings. Whether there is value or not in other peoples possessions is not the point. It shouldn’t happen. A-holes.

  22. Merc’s crack team operation 100%.

  23. ColdFly F1 (@)
    6th December 2014, 16:09

    Thanks Keith for this article – never seen so many hilarious comments.

    PS – I feel sorry for the guys at Red Bull, but I am sure they will soon have another 60+ replicas on the shelves.

  24. If the thieves had any sense they’d have ignored the trophies and gone straight to Adrian Newey’s office.

    No fan of Red Bull’s recent behaviour, but really feel for them. Stuff of financial worth can be replaced, but items with sentimental value can’t.

    1. Oeiiiiiiiiiiii! (another davidnotcoulthard account) (@)
      6th December 2014, 18:04

      @neilosjames Perhaps taking the trophies were a distraction and some of them actually did go into Adrian’s office, taking what they were actually after?

      Which is the key manual to starting Newey’s RB9 since Vettel wants that before finally getting an RB6/7/8/9 as it’d actually be an aero improvement for Ferrari?

  25. Team principal Christian Horner said the team were “devastated” by what he called a “serious factory break in”.

    Really? I mean, really? Horner later says they don’t have any value anyway apart from emotional value (and some of them are replicas anyway), so what’s the big deal? ‘Devastated’ is a word I would use when a relative passes away or something, perspective.

    As a disclaimer, I have earned exactly one trophy in my life, which I dismantled because I needed the screws.

    1. “which I dismantled because I needed the screws.”

      I like you.

    2. Yeah, but you didnt sink in 1.2 billion dollars across 4 years in one of the most intense competitions on the planet.

      1. ColdFly F1 (@)
        6th December 2014, 23:38

        that would just make it very expensive screws!

      2. So they spent 1.2 billion just for some trinkets? I thought they did it as a way to promote the Red Bull brand and increase it’s sales, making back the money invested a couple times over.

  26. Why would these criminals choose this year to steal the trophies, more specifically this time of the year after all the driver switches? It’s no coincidence at all-this was either done by Ferrari fanatics who are angry at seeing Vettel join Ferrari/ Alonso leaving Ferrari or they were Red Bull/ Vettel fanatics who were angry at Vettel leaving the team. But judging from what I hear about the cars’ foreign plates my gut tells me its the former…

    It has to be one of these reasons, it happens merely months after the driver announcements, and besides, wouldn’t they want to steal Mercedes’ trophies instead with the season they had, including most likely having the Constructors’ and WDC trophies right in the front lobby to show off, the ones with real value??

    Regardless of these idiots’ reasons, this is a sad day for F1 in general as it means even more security and scrutiny at the time where F1 is seen as the most secretive sport in the world. This will lead to further restrictions and access to phenomenal places like this.

    Let’s end with a “quick note”…..
    I’m a little baffled as to how the security guards could not stop the thieves. After all, they could just fired up one of the Red Bulls to make the ultimate police car!!!
    I could see the headline already: “Red Bull not only gives you wings, but World Championships and criminal justice!!”

  27. Would this include trophies won by Red Bull owned teams outside of F1 as well? I feel horrible for the employees who no doubt have worked very hard to get to where they are as individuals. Those trophies represent much more than just winning to the employees.

  28. Its good alot of them were replicas. Its all very odd. There must be easier places to rob and much more valuable items… those Santander trophies cant cost much more than a fiver.

    I just wish it had happened to Ron Dennis instead.

  29. Thank god the world championship and constructor trophy’s weren’t there.

  30. Trenthamfolk (@)
    6th December 2014, 21:52

    Who has Helmut Marko annoyed now… the theft of these things is pointless so far as I can see, other than to humiliate Red Bull and piss off their management. The metals aren’t precious, and it’s not like they can be sold on eBay… It looks like a contract job with a purely symbolic objective.

    Perhaps Red Bull have been short on publicity this year?

    1. “Who has Helmut Marko annoyed now… … It looks like a contract job with a purely symbolic objective.” <—-

      @trenthamfolk my thoughts exactly;

  31. Wouldn’t be surprised if it was Ferrari. It’ll be the only trophies their getting anytime soon!

  32. This just in: they only stole the ones that were won with illicit equipment.

    Kidding, kidding…..

    1. Trenthamfolk (@)
      7th December 2014, 13:06

      Lol ;-)

  33. They’ll be caught. What a silly thing to do. Not as if they can sell them on and I bet the trophies are pretty meagre in value in and of themselves.

  34. Just curious, but does anyone have an idea why some of them were replicas? Why not all or none? What happens to the originals that they use replicas of?

    1. Drivers get them, I’d hope. Expect most of the team ones were originals, while the driver ones were copies.

    2. For mclaren they keep the originals

    3. Some trophies are “perpetual” so are only on loan to the winner for the year or are kept in the clubhouse of the presenter eg. BRDC.

  35. All the comments turning this disgusting robbery into a ‘joke’ are pathetic. Shame on all of you morbid people.

    1. Lighten up. Its theft, not murder. Besides, what was stolen was of sentimental value to a corporation.

      And I’m personally loving the comments, even though I agree that the theft was in poor taste and is senseless.

    2. I’d have thought the morbid were the ones failing to accept any humour in such a situation.

    3. i think its kind of funny, well, amusing. Considering they have so much money they can invest in a better security.

  36. There are 2 merc. 1 driven by hamilton and another by rosberg.

  37. Raúl Valencia
    7th December 2014, 5:16

    Seems that some betting-related mafia lost big money when this team did not reconquer the championship… And took a characteristic, mafia-style revenge.

  38. This is silly, Seb. Common!

  39. And Webber walks away without even a hint of suspicion ?

    Seb realizes the depths of the Tifosi’s passion when he is overheard in an Italian restaurant saying “I wish i had some of my Red Bull Trophies” and a santa sack of tin is dumped on his doorstep . :)

  40. My first thoughts were, could this be Vergne?

  41. My first thought was that Caterham has launched another audacious quick cash scheme.

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