Exclusive: How David Coulthard helped shape the early days of Red Bull

Before Max Verstappen, before Sebastian Vettel, before Mark Webber, Daniel Ricciardo, Sergio Perez or a number of highly talented drivers, there was David Coulthard.

In 2005, the Red Bull project was in its infancy. A $1 bid (along with a commitment to spend $400 million on the team) had allowed an Austrian energy drink company to join the F1 grid. At the time, they were the only team not named after a car manufacturer or team owner, a distinctive outlier in the prestigious world of F1.

Behind it all was Dietrich Mateschitz, the co-founder of the Red Bull empire and a man who would go on to have an influence on the world of motorsport rivalled by few others. Mateschitz worked with his fellow Austria Helmut Marko to create the team and they selected 31-year-old Christian Horner as their team principal.

How they settled on Horner is reflective of the story of Red Bull itself. A chance encounter, remembered years later. Marko sold a trailer to Horner in the ‘90s, in 2005 they started were working together and still do.

Marko and Horner are both recognisable names these days and the Red Bull logo can be seen in every grandstand at each grand prix but back in 2005, they were a team of nobodies and their first big name was a certain Scotsman.

“Christian is the first to acknowledge, he didn’t really know a lot of people involved in F1,” David Coulthard told PlanetF1.com. “I knew Christian from way back in karting. We had a similar sponsor when I was in F3 that he had coming up through, a company called Autoglass.

“So we both have photographs in a Leyton House March designed by Adrian Newey because Autoglass sponsored Leyton House, so we’ve all kind of been linked.”

Coulthard may never have won a title at Red Bull, he never even won a race, but he is just as crucial as every other driver to have sat in the seat. It was Coulthard, who knew Horner from sharing the sponsor, that convinced Adrian Newey to join. The pair had worked together at McLaren.

Coulthard was on his way out of Woking at the end of 2004 and, along with his manager Martin Brundle, spoke with other teams up and down the grid but it was Horner and Mateschitz who sold him the Red Bull dream.

“I never had the vision of 20 years [of Red Bull] or something,” he said. “I very much had the vision of what are the next few years? What can I achieve? Or what can we do in the coming years?

“I didn’t know if Dietrich Mateschitz had that long term vision because before I signed the contract, I wanted to know not whether he had the money, because that’s only a fraction of the story, but actually if they have the brain power as well as the budget.

“And his vision was absolutely first we get the respect of the paddock and then my target is we are Formula 1 World Champions.”

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Mateschitz was the driving force behind the team, pouring money into the venture and helping turn Red Bull from the black sheep of the paddock to a serious title contender.

As Coulthard speaks, he reveals more of how the Red Bull co-founder was more crucial than anyone in establishing the now six-time title winners.

“He was very clear what was possible and what the goal was, and I’m sure that’s the same kind of vision when he had this energy drink that nobody asked for and trying to convince people that this was something that would enhance their life and functionality.

“Can you imagine how difficult that must have been? Now there’s so many different energy brands, there’s a whole category that didn’t exist before. So that takes vision and belief.

“And that same vision and belief is what were the foundations of what has now become a 20-year celebration. But my main thing was who are the people that are there? What have I been used to? Where are the gaps and how do we fill them? So it was a very matter of fact approach to putting the pieces in place. And actually, I don’t think that’s any different today than it was then.”

Having been in a historic team like McLaren with its already well-defined structure, moving to a fresh venture allowed Coulthard to get more hands on, to tell the team what to do and what not to do, even if he was not always listened to.

“At that period, I was more involved,” he recalled of the early days in Milton Keynes. “I was going to the factory more than I ever did at McLaren.

“We’d go to Salzburg and meet Dietrich after the grand prix, explain what we’d achieved, what we needed, how things were evolving. Things like tyre choices. Why we wanted Michelin or Bridgestone or wherever the choice was.

“It was great. It was empowering. And then when I reached the end of that journey, it wasn’t difficult for me to step aside and make way for Sebastian and then that whole journey they went on.

“[At the start] it was key steps, things that we needed back in those days. The engine, we were a customer to Cosworth and then we were a customer to Ferrari and then we were a customer to Renault. Being a customer, it’s not a great place to be when you’ve been used to being a works team.

“So that was one area that in many ways, they got to know where I would have liked them to have been way back. Because I always felt like I was never a big fan of the Toro Rosso acquisition and I made that very clear to Dietrich at the time, because I was like ‘it’s difficult enough to win with one team, why would we want the distraction of a second team?’

“It was a marketing thing and it’s found its place. But in the early days, it was actually challenging to have those two resources when I would have preferred to invest in an engine. Buying Cosworth and making a Red Bull engine, something like that would have been my vision. But it turned out okay for the team.”

Buying that team is a number of moves Red Bull made early on that now look like a stroke of genius. 2024 sees Red Bull competing in their 20th year of competition and a chance at a seventh Constructors’ title. Since they entered the sport, only Mercedes have won more and it is the mixture of the cars they have built and the drivers they have nurtured that make Red Bull’s 20 years some of the most successful in F1 history.

But a juggernaut has to start somewhere. Mateschitz brought Marko who brought Horner who brought Coulthard who brought Newey. With Newey on board, the chassis was taken care of but the engine remained an issue, even during Vettel’s dominant run, and not until they struck a deal with Honda in Mateschitz did Red Bull finally feel confident in their power unit.

It was Coulthard on the ground in the early days, the driver’s voice in a sea of engineers and more than anything he stressed the importance of his number one goal – win.

“We had to find an engine partner that would give us a bit more flexibility,” he recalled. “And the gearbox was a big area where we were behind because people have moved to seamless shifts, which was worth a few tenths of a lap.

“So we brought someone in from Ferrari that I’d worked with at McLaren and we got a gearbox dyno, which is a big investment that Dietrich had to sign off on and we were pushing to try and bring that in.

“Of course when you’re pushing there are failures, but I saw failure as an important part of accelerating the development because if you always keep it safe how do you know how much margin you have if you’re always making the targets?

“It did mean that we had a few smoky situations outside of the racetrack because if you’re not winning the grand prix, why does it matter?

“If the goal is to win the grand prix, you do everything that’s possible to accelerate that moment. There were painful times but I think it’s shown that in the long run that goal was a good foundation.”

120 wins later and Coulthard’s goal has been accomplished and then some.

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