The Austrian billionaire, who based his commercial expansion on sports sponsorship, was one of the essential figures of the Great Circus in recent decades.
Dietrich Mateschitz, the businessman who built the Red Bull empire, the motor lover who for three decades expanded his brand from Formula 1 to the World Rally Championship, NASCAR or the Dakar, died on Saturday at the age of 78, the victim of a long illness. At the Grand Circus he won four constructors’ titles and six drivers’ titles, the last two to the greater glory of Max Verstappen. “A few weeks ago we were able to spend a few hours together and it’s incredibly hard, because I wouldn’t be here without him,” said the new 2022 champion after qualifying for the US GP. “The result of this qualy It’s the least of it,” added the Dutchman.
The Red Bull empire today encompasses 13,000 workers distributed in 172 countries, with annual sales of almost 10,000 million cans and 8,000 million euros in revenue. However, Mateschitz’s legacy goes far beyond his immense fortune, estimated at almost 30,000 million euros. His was the revolutionary initiative of commercial expansion from sports sponsorship. A few tentacles that ranged from F1 to the jump from the stratosphere of Felix Baumgartner. Without forgetting the football journey, promoting two minor clubs, such as Salzburg and Leipzig, to the Champions League.
The great idea for Mateschitz, almost by way of lighting, came in the early 1980s, during a work trip to Thailand. There he discovered a drink called Krating Daeng, owned by Chaleo Yoovidhya, which served as the basis for his own creation. “I never thought that a personal taste would become a world bomb,” she used to say about his recipe, almost a copy of the original, except for the addition of carbon dioxide. So after partnering with Yoovidhya, he founded Red Bull in 1987 and immediately turned to the motor world to promote the brand.
Buy Jaguar for a dollar
your countryman Gerhard Berger, who had signed for Ferrari that year, became the first F1 driver to wear the bulls logo. Far from being satisfied, in 1995 the Red Bull stickers covered the Sauber chassis, a squire on the rise with its brand new Ford Cosworth engines. in Monsa, Heinz-Harald Frentzen signed the first podium for the Swiss. That alliance, however, was broken when Peter Sauber denies Enrique Bernoldithe Brazilian driver raised in the Red Bull Junior Team for whom Mateschitz claimed a seat.
As has always happened in Formula 1, the ambition of money had to be combined with the weight of tradition, so the great step forward would take place with the purchase of Jaguar. The British structure dragged a terribly deteriorated situation, despite the efforts of Mark Webber behind the wheel, so in the fall of 2004, parent company Ford, which had just laid off 15,000 workers in the United States, sold its F1 division for the symbolic price of one dollar.
To command this adventure, Mateschitz relied on a former British pilot named Christian Horner. Someone as determined as him, who came from boosting Vitantonio Luzzi to the Formula 3000 title with the Arden team. At 32 years old he was going to become the main team youngest in the history of the Great Circus. His first bet will come with Adrian Newey, a designer of extraordinary prestige, who was entrusted with a salary of more than 10 million dollars. And to take the wheel of the RB1, I thought of the veteran David Coulthard, which debuted with a fourth place in Melbourne and went on to lead at the Nurburgring. In any case, the Scotsman’s first podium finish was delayed until the 2006 Monaco GP.
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Sainz marks a very tight ‘pole’ and fight with Verstappen for the victory
Sainz marks a very tight ‘pole’ and fight with Verstappen for the victory
The expansion plan, at that time, passed through a mother team, where the young talents of his academy could gain experience. To do this, Mateschitz fixed his attention on Minardi, another historic man on the verge of extinction, for which he would pay 35 million dollars. With the idea of maintaining his Italian DNA, he renamed it Toro Rosso. For the first time in history, a single man managed the designs of two F1 teams. Oblivious to the criticism, which called him a megalomaniac, the Austrian sold half of Toro Rosso’s shares to his friend Berger and put the project in charge of Franz Tost.
In that ecosystem, with Ferrari engines, combining a consolidated driver like Sbastien Bourdais with a beardless Sebastian Vettel, the subsidiary soon offered results. The German’s historic one-two at the 2008 Italian GP, with pole and victory, astonished the adversaries. Vettel would jump the following year to Red Bull Racing, where he collected another four wins. And in 2010, after an exciting pulse with Fernando Alonso, would become the youngest champion in history (23 years, four months and 11 days). A record still valid. His dynasty, with four consecutive titles, will reach its zenith in 2013, with 13 wins in 19 races, equaling another record of Michael Schumacher.
Ecclestone and Ezpeleta
Not even Mercedes’ terrifying retort from 2014, the start date of the hybrid era, could completely dissolve Red Bull. The risky commitment to Honda engines, after the stage with Renault, was the seed of Verstappen’s triumphant cycle. To the tons of controversy of the 2021 Abu Dhabi GP, the investigation is added today for violating the budget limit, although Mateschitz chose to stay away from any lurch.
He liked to brag that sales had never been his priority and that he had always limited himself to 49% of Red Bull’s shares, leaving the remaining majority to Yoovidhya’s family. His influence on the paddock had been cooked on the verge of Bernie Ecclestoneformer F1 skipper, and Carmelo Ezpeleta, owner of MotoGP, with whom he continued to maintain a good friendship. And his compatriots still thanked him for recovering from the Austrian GP, based at the Red Bull Ring. Today, beyond the flags, the great family of motorsport mourns one of his great benefactors.
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