Red Bull Defends Decision “Some Would Call Foolish”

Red Bull is somewhat of an oddity among the teams in F1. Their parent company is not a car manufacturer but their F1 team still has the resources of one and operates in a manner similar to any other factory team. They have two teams in F1, their track hosts two F1 races and from next year onwards, they will be making their own power units. Some have suggested that Red Bull may have bitten off more than they can chew with that last one. Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has now defended the team’s choices while speaking to Motorsport Total Link to poll:    • Post   0:00 - Red Bull Defends “What Some Would Call Foolish” Investment 1:44 - Fast Feed I'm your host Dillon Shelley and first up on Formula World: Red Bull Defends “What Some Would Call Foolish” Investment Horner began by explaining how age is not an issue for Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz (77) and advisor Helmut Marko (78) while also joking about Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff’s age who is only 49 “No, absolutely not. They're both in good shape. Maybe it's the mountain air. You wouldn't think Toto was 65!. They are in good shape and they are still highly motivated when it comes to Formula 1” He then cited former F1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone as an example of how age does not have to be a shortcoming “It's great to hear that Bernie is still quite active at 90. It just shows that age, whether young or the other end of the scale, doesn't have to be a hurdle” He then looked at the scale of Red Bull’s involvement in F1 “Two teams, of course the Austrian Grand Prix, then this year the Styrian Grand Prix and now this enormous investment, which some would call foolish, to produce our own engine” He signed off by explaining why they have been able to do all of this “That's Red Bull - to dare to do what others say is impossible and become an independent engine manufacturer. These developments would not have been possible without Dietrich's drive and without Helmut's drive” Fast Feed Former F1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya thinks that Red Bull’s “Max Verstappen has done a very good job so far. The hardest thing for him this year is that he is in a new situation” [Motorsport Netherlands] “He's always been the hunter, not the one everyone else is hunting. It's great for him that he's in this situation right now, but if you're the one being hunted, you need to start approaching things a little differently” “For example, drivers who in the past were not so aggressive in a mutual duel, can now suddenly be very aggressive. We have seen that with Lewis Hamilton”, Montoya surmised Retired F1 world champion Jenson Button has revealed that “one thing [he hasn’t] been able to overcome is driving a bad car. That's [his] weakness” [High Performance Podcast] “Lewis [Hamilton] and Fernando Alonso can get into a bad car and get more out of it than [he] can”, Button added McLaren CEO Zak Brown feels that his driver “Lando [Norris] has really matured. He came to the team as a rookie and was a very mature driver” [Motorsport Total] “If you look at other rookies that came here, they often had accidents. They were fast, but exceeded the limit too often. Lando doesn't do that” He revealed that they “encouraged him and said it's okay if things go wrong once in a while. What [they] saw is that he got even faster, was able to stretch his elbows, but still kept the car on the track” Aston Martin team principal Otmar Szafnauer has divulged that the “upgrades [to their factory and wind tunnel] will take place after the 2022 season” [Motorsport Total] “For the '22 season [they] will use the facilities [they] have now. It takes more than two years to build a wind tunnel and in about a year and a year [their] new factory will be operational” “[They] have hired a few people. Some have already started, others will start soon. [They've] grown by 150 people since the days of Racing Point, which is quite a lot” Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff “got annoyed in Baku, and that is not something that's normally happening to [him]” [The Express] “On reflection, [he wants] to concentrate [his] focus on the team and on [himself], rather than be distracted by noise” Haas team principal Guenther Steiner “knew [that his drivers] came well prepared from Formula 2, [but] what [he] realized is how big the step actually is from Formula 2 to F1” [Autosport] “[He] would say that for everybody. And then if you go back and look at the guys who came in from F2, they all took a little bit of time to get used to it. It's not only the driving, it's the whole surrounding” He further thinks that “on the driving side, they both catch up quicker than [he] thought they would but the rest of it, it takes a bit of time to get accustomed to” Is Red Bull’s decision to make their own Power Units too ambitious?