June 20th, 2011 
T.C. After five years in existence, we learned via Jenna Fryer on Monday that Red Bull Racing will be no more after this season. There are a lot of rumors and speculation about the future of the organization, but plan A at this point appears to involve manager Jay Frye and the hope of attracting outside investors. Only time will tell if Frye can actually put a deal together to keep the doors open of their Lakeside shop.
Exactly why Red Bull is getting out now remains a mystery. Speculation has hinged on everything from their performance issues to business reasons. NASCAR has struggled in recent years with the key male 18-34 demographic, and that is Red Bull’s target market. With fewer of their target consumers tuning in, this would seem to be a plausible explanation. I’m not sure I buy that however.
To me, this move appears to be Red Bull cutting their losses. They’ve sunk millions into this race team over the last five years and they have very little to show for it. Brian Vickers has the organization’s lone Cup Series win, which came back in 2009. At the time, it appeared Red Bull was on their way, but performance has been a disappointment since then. The outlook for RBR was positive coming into 2011, but the season hasn’t panned out to this point. Kasey Kahne is currently 19th in the standings and Brian Vickers is 24th. Kahne is their top threat to win every week, but he’s leaving at season’s end for Hendrick.
It is my belief that regardless of NASCAR’s demographic issues, if Red Bull was winning and a regular contender, they’d stay. Let me remind you that this is a company that has spent well north of $600 million on it’s Formula 1 teams since 2004. The difference being that Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber are contenders.
I also want to point out that I don’t think Red Bull’s departure is some sort of drastic sign about the health of the sport. NASCAR is still a very viable avenue for companies looking to spend marketing dollars, and recent deals like the one HMS struck with Farmers Insurance show that. It may not happen immediately, but Red Bull’s spots on the grid will be filled.
Moving forward, even though Red Bull appears to be giving up their ownership stake, their NASCAR involvement may not end completely. Becoming a regular sponsor of either a driver or races could be an option. Here’s to hoping this is the case.
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After the way I (and many other fans) were treated at the Red Bull fan event at Speed Street and their shop in 2010, I can’t say that I’m sad to see them go.
From the NASCAR side of things, I’ve long held the belief that they’ve mismanaged things from the beginning. They certainly have the money to put together a contending team, but they lack a fundamental understanding of how to git ‘er done NASCAR-style.
It’s certainly not a lack of understanding of overall sports, as they’ve done well in F1, X-sports, etc. This is just sad.
The big loser here? Cole Whitt.
Red Bull as a team owner didn’t have the patience to succeed in NASCAR.
They dumped A.J. Allmendinger just as he was starting to run well.
They gave Scott Speed inconsistent equipment, and then blamed him for not running well.
And it sounds like there were decisions being made in Austria, overriding the people that were supposed to be making the decisions.
Hopefully, Jay Frye can get Mark Martin and some other investors on board, and they can put something together. There are a lot of potential sponsors out there, and the prices are going down, so more and more of them will start to come back to NASCAR and other motor sports.
No drivers, no leadership at Red Bull is behind their demise. Kasey Kahne is the best thing that’s happened to Red Bull, and he’s out at years end. Scott Speed was the biggest joke for a driver they ever had there, as they found out in Formula 1.
Jay Frye, well, the proof’s in the pudding. Some people were not meant to manage.
The only thing difficult to understand is why they started a team to begin with. While that is something that works in F1 its not needed in Nascar.
I do think that those who say no big deal are fooling themselves. While true that there will still be full fields in Sprint Cup next year, it will most likely be by the expansion of the mega teams. Which wont help the situation that Nascar finds itself in.
Once again a full season sponsor leaves, and has to be replaced by multiple partial sponsors.
Red Bull made a huge mistake with Toyota entering in 2007. Those teams got blasted trying to keep up with 2 styles of race cars. The last blow might have been Vickers getting sick just as he started to get it together. It shows you can’t be a great team throwing money at a situation. You need the right people and Red Bull never got that done. If investors don’t pick the team up you have to wonder who will go after those owner’s points.
The Red Bull cars look really good, but the product itself is a sham. The 18-34 male demographic is probably “the” only group that has the metabolism to offset the sugary drink, marketed as a “sports drink”.
Anyone notice the post-race interview w/ Kyle Busch at Pocono? Camera cuts to Kyle while he is taking a swig of an orange drink in a clear plastic bottle in the shape of a Powerade w/ black cap. Once he realizes camera is on him, he ditches the mystery brew and holds the NOS Energy drink bottle to the snout.
I do agree w/ Russ, in that the loss of a BIG team w/ a guranteed sponsor in the form of team owners “will” hurt economic landscape of CUP. IMHO Cup needs more automotive product related sponsors to be relavent, long term and effective.
RedBull leaving Nascar I think has to do with the fact that they were not finding success on the track. Contrast that with their F1 team and it’s night and day. It also highlights the difference between F1 and Nascar.
F1 is an engineer driven sport. If you can put the most brain power to a problem you can win races. Thats why the big teams crush the smaller teams in F1. They can spend more on R&D, develop new parts, and invest more money to a problems thru computer models and windtunnel applications. The engineers are the masters of F1.
Nascar is a different beast all together that RedBull could never figure out. In Nascar you can show up at a race be quick in qualifing and practice and come race time you have a tub of crap. With cars that are ultra sensative, no sensors on the cars, and old technology, the fate of a driver and car rest on one guy on the pit box makeing the right changes. Make the right changes you go fast, make the wrong change you go slow.
RedBull could never understand why they could be fast the first half of a race and so slow in the second half of the race. In F1 you win the race before the race starts. In Nascar you win the race during the race. The crew chief is the most important piece to the puzzle in Nascar while in F1 the car is. Take Chad away from Jimmy and you don’t have five titles in a row. Take Adrian Newey from RedBull and no world title. RedBull’s problem was not that they didn’t invest in people, they invested in the wrong people.
Well said BP. Red Bull doesn’t realize that people actually have to get along and communicate in NASCAR unlike F-1, where the engineers have the say on car setups and get paid handsomely for their efforts. You can’t just throw money at Sprint Cup folks and expect to win. Also there are far more threats to win a race than in F-1. Hope someone realizes that Vickers has the ability to win in a good ride.
Great comments above. In addition, I question the viability of a sponsor owned team. The last unsuccessful effort was Ashland (Valvoline). In today’s multicar environment, the most successful teams have three or four cars, with two, three or even four solid drivers. Until this year, Vickers never had a partner w/ enough experience that helped out the team. My personal opinion was that Vickers making the chase in 2009 was a statistical anomaly. He finished 2009 as the last chase driver, which was more typical of his history, around 20th place finishes. Note that I’m not trying to run down Vickers, I think he has talent, just no help.
Easy to analyze the ashes, but for Red Bull to be successful in the allotted time frame, they needed at least two experienced drivers with two experienced crew chiefs. Or, they needed another team, which would have increased sponsorship cost approximately 50%, or they needed to bring in outside sponsors.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens to the team. Unlike Stewart/Haas, I don’t think Mark Martin has the star-power to bring in the sponsors like Smoke. My understanding was that Smoke didn’t have to put up a lot of money (any?) to ‘buy into’ his raceteam, however, he brought tons of sponsorship money, which brought immediate credibility to Stewart/Haas. Martin going to the Frye organization, and partnering w/ Hendrick would only work if they brought in the sponsor dough.
Looking back on the Red Bull situation, I’m wondering if this team shutdown was not already in the works late last year. Signs such as “borrowing” Kahne for 2011 from Hendrick. Dropping Scott Speed. And (apparently) not picking up Vickers’ contract option beyond 2011.
I’m guessing that Red Bull was getting heavy support from Toyota and needed to run this year to fullfill their contractural obligations.
Now for my wild guess as to what will happen next:
Gibbs has been teasing around about starting a 4th team for years. Rumor had it that they nearly put something together with Kahne last year, but could not get the full sponsorship package together.
Now Gibbs has their sights set on Carl Edwards (who fits the Red Bull image perfectly). Red Bull and Toyota might have the jack to lure Edwards to Gibbs’ Toyota team #4. And more than likely, the points from the defunct RBR #4 team would move to Gibbs, too.
Carl Edwards is way, way too health conscious to be sponsored by that extremely unhealthy and frankly, down right dangerous drink.
I think Red Bull will stick around Nascar as a sponsor instead of being owners. This could still benefit their brand greatly.
Last July, Red Bull began a headquarters restructure(located in Austria). They cancelled the Air Race series as well. Sales must be down. If they’re looking for young kids, NASCAR is no the place for them.
Ok I need to ask this question… Why does it even matter to Kasey Kahne next year he will be Driving for Hendrick Motorsports, So it should really mean nothing to him if Red Bull stays or goes. I mean Team Red Bull has only had 3 drivers in the last 4 years that were even partially competive Kasey Kahne, Casey Mears, and Brian Vickers. I’ll be honest as a Kahne fan I said back when this deal was announced I wasn’t buying any Red Bull stuff for 2 reasons the Product tastes like cold carbonated sweat and Kasey will not be there in 2012. red Bull racing should stick with Open Wheel racing anyway.