What do F1 and skating have in common?

You may think the only thing F1 and skating have in common are wheels, but thanks to Red Bull, you’d be wrong!

Red Bull have ties in almost every sport, from NASCAR and Formula 1 to Skiing and Skating, and last season, over the mid-season break, Red Bull Racing invited 5 of their top skaters to the Red Bull Racing factory to skate around the shop floor!

They were grinding the work benches and skating up ramps in the car assembly hall before one of Red Bull’s top skaters, Kris Vile, decided it was time to push the limits and announced he would like to jump one of the F1 cars. And he did.

He said: “As soon as I saw the floor here at Red Bull Racing I knew I had to skate it but I never thought I’d ever get the chance. This has definitely been a day I will never forget. Jumping the F1 car was definitely the icing on the cake. The first was amazing but for me the second jump is the one I’ll always remember.”

That’s not the only bit of skating antics Red Bull got up to during the 09 season. When the BBC were looking for ways to show just how steep the Eau Rouge corner at Spa-Francorchamps was, they decided to find a skateboarder to skate down it.

Up stepped local 14-year-old, Red Bull-backed European skating champion Axel Cruysberghs who successfully completed 2 runs down the famous corner, reaching up to speeds of 26 miles per hour. Watch Axel skate Eau Rouge here.

RB6 to be unveiled on first day of Jerez test

The 2010 Red Bull Racing car – the RB6 will be unveiled on the first day of the first Jerez test on Wednesday 10th February.

Attending the launch will be Red Bull Racing’s drivers Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel alongside team principal Christian Horner and the car’s architect, chief technical officer Adrian Newey.

Why are RBR missing the first pre-season test in Valencia? Newey gave his reasoning:

“We wanted to give ourselves as much time as possible to research and develop the car. We felt that because the car is evolutionary, we hopefully didn’t need to be out early to establish the basic concept of the car. We wanted to allow ourselves as much time as possible to research it.”

Why haven’t RBR elected to take the 2009 RB5 to the test in Valencia? Christian Horner said:

“Due to the limit on tyres available to the teams. There’s no point in burning up engine mileage and rubber on an RB5. We’d rather use the tyres for quality testing at the three tests that we have confirmed we’ll run at, starting with the first test in Jerez.”

Ricciardo & Hartley Red Bull reserves in 2010

Daniel Ricciardo and Brendon Hartley are the Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso reserve drivers in 2010. Both of the drivers have prior F1 experience and are graduates of the Red Bull Junior programme.

The 20-year-old Australian Daniel Ricciardo has had a good run the last two years, winning the Formula Renault 2.0 WEC championship in 2008 and the British F3 title in 2009, before testing for Red Bull Racing in the young drivers test last month, where he set the fastest time on the third and final day of the test.

Ricciardo will partake in the Formula Renault 3.5 Series in 2010 while being on standby for the Red Bull sister teams. On the news, Ricciardo said:

“It’s very exciting. It was an email I was hoping for since the test in December, but I wasn’t sure whether it would come at all. So, a big relief, but also very satisfying.

“This will be a very good introduction to F1 – even though I won’t be driving the car, just to sit in on the briefings and do what the drivers do on a weekend is a good way to start learning. It’s all exciting and I’ll be busy, even though I’m not driving.”

Completing the all-Australasian, 20-year-old Red Bull reserve lineup is New Zealander Brendon Hartley, who also has previous F1 experience – he too drove in the young driver test at Jerez, but for Toro Rosso, not Red Bull Racing.

Hartley’s only major championship win came in 2007 when he won the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 championship. On his appointment he said:

“I’m happy to be a part of the Red Bull F1 set-up again and it’ll be good to be at the race tracks learning as much as possible so that if I do get the opportunity to do a race I’m fully prepared.”

In 2010, Hartley is continuing in the Formula Renault 3.5 Series for the Tech 1 Racing team, alongside Ricciardo who is making his Formula Renault 3.5 debut on the books of Tech 1 Racing. On the subject of being teammates with Daniel, Brendon said:

“Me and Daniel are good friends. But we’ve never been team-mates before so that’ll be different, but he’s a nice guy and we get on really well and we’ll be fighting to win as long as it’s fair then let the best man win.”

Jaime’s helmet to be red & yellow in 2010

Jaime Alguersuari has revealed to Gives You Wings on Twitter his helmet will be red and yellow in 2010. When I asked the Toro Rosso driver what colour it was to be, he said that it will be like his 2005 karting helmet (pictured above) and he hopes that it will be ready for the Valencia test, starting on the 1st February.

Jaime tweeted:

Last year Jaime used a more traditional Red Bull silver helmet with some red and yellow flashes on, but we can expect a much more colourful helmet in 2010!

Jaime has only just joined Twitter so lets get him some more followers!  He is @JAIMEALGUERSUAR

Who should be driving for RBR in 2011?

Red Bull Racing may have their drivers for this season sorted (and what a great pair of drivers they are too!), but who should be driving for RBR in 2011?

Sebastian Vettel should stay on with RBR in 2011, and I for one would be very happy to see him continue – I would imagine that there are very few RBR fans who wouldn’t like to see the young German stay on. Providing the RB6 is a championship contender, surely Seb will be satisfied to continue with RBR.

However there is a bigger grey area over Mark Webber’s F1 future – how much longer does Mark Webber have in F1? Will he leave at the end of 2010? Given the fact that he is still only 33, and only scored his first ever F1 win last season, I would think that Mark would have a few more years in the tank after this season, but whether those years are with Red Bull will depend on how 2010 goes.

Will Sebastien Buemi from Toro Rosso be knocking on the door for a drive at RBR, so another drive can open up at STR for another youngster – possibly Daniel Ricciardo or Brendon Hartley? Buemi has not yet greatly impressed, but has showed flashes of great talent and maturity.

Then there is the Kimi Raikkonen rumour – will he return to F1 with RBR in 2011, as so many F1 news sources have reported? Well, he has joined a Red Bull-backed team in the WRC, and claims that a return to F1 will always be available, so never say never! Raikkonen is one of the quickest F1 drivers over one lap ever, and he has a world championship to back it up, but if I am honest, I think Raikkonen prefers the quiet life of the WRC to the media & PR event frenzy that is the Formula 1 world championship, so while I would love to see him at Red Bull Racing, I don’t think an F1 return is ever on the cards for the Finn.

These are just some of my thoughts and questions I have noted down – who do you think should be driving for Red Bull Racing in 2011?

Superb pictures & video of RBR’s Canada trip

There have been some superb images and video coming out of RBR’s running showcar trip to Canada. The team have captured some amazing photos and footage, and despite the fact that the Red Bull Frozen One event was cancelled due to thin ice, it certainly hasn’t melted enough to take away any of the arctic impact from these amazing shots, taken at two locations: Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and the Lac-à-l’Eau-Claire.

The first ever RBR livery

Think the livery above was the first ever livery on a Red Bull Racing F1 car??? Think again!

While the livery above was used throughout the 2005 season, Red Bull had a different livery which only appeared at the first of the pre season tests.

After purchasing the Jaguar team, Red Bull had a matter of days to come up with a livery, and rather unsurprisingly and unimaginatively they came up with a design which looked the same as a can of Red Bull, although, I must admit, I rather like it! Here it is:

Apologies for the lack of images, but they are very, very hard to find

Do you like the livery? Drop me a comment!

Video: Red Bull Racing – The story so far

Taking inspiration from our sister blog – Forza Toro Rosso‘s excellent video recapping the years that Toro Rosso have been in F1, I decided to undertake the task of doing the same thing, except for Red Bull Racing!

I have trawled through the F1 archives and showed every one of the exciting Red Bull Racing bits, from their first ever Grand Prix in 2005, to their win in Abu Dhabi at the end of last season. Enjoy!

What do you think of this video? Leave me a comment below!

Gives You Wings on Facebook

I have put Gives You Wings on Facebook so we can meet more Red Bull Racing fans, have more debate and discussion and share photos! You can join the Give You Wings Facebook page here.

Mark Webber tests hot hatches

Mark Webber has recently been testing a few hot hatches for the Telegraph newspaper, and here is the video showing him giving his thoughts! It even shows a rather cold looking Christian Horner for 2 seconds at the end of the video.

This video also features the Red Bull Racing factory I posted about a few days ago – you can see the huge crimson bovine behind Webber at the start of the vid and yep, that is RBR HQ!

Like this post? Let me know!