Webber: Red Bull would get more respect as manufacturer

Former F1 driver Mark Webber says that his old team Red Bull would get more acknowledgement and respect for its success in the sport if it was a fully fledged manufacturer.

Unlike its major rivals in the sport such as Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren, Red Bull remains in effect a customer team, and still struggles to throw off its old image as a 'party team' in the 2000s.

But such disparaging views are very much odd with the reality of their tenure on the sport, with Red Bull picking up its 100th Grand Prix victory this season and Max Verstappen well on his way to a third consecutive drivers title.

Red Bull's wins have all some in a 14-year stint since Sebastian Vettel claimed the team's first race win in 2009, making them the quickest squad to achieve the landmark. It took Williams 18 years to do so between 1979 and 1997.

But Red Bull has never been an official manufacturer in the sport, replying on engines from Renault, then Honda and soon Ford, but its young driver programme has developed top talents such as Vettel and Max Verstappen.

Webber - who drive for Red Bull for seven years from 2007 until his retirement from Formula 1, initially alongside David Coulthard and subsequently as team mate to Sebastian Vettel - thinks this means they don't get proper respect.

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In this opinion, Red Bull is “one of the great success stories of Formula 1 – has to be”," he told Motorsport.com. “If it was a manufacturer, it might get some more praise and notoriety."

"People forget about the level of employment that Red Bull has put into the sport is truly extraordinary.

"In essence, it’s still a team made of tremendous individuals and people that have done a great job to engineer beautiful Formula 1 cars for world championships

"To be dominant in many ways ... I think that their ability to be able to do that has been a great success story," he insisted.

"What they’ve put into the sport in that area in terms of their staff, the infrastructure at Milton Keynes, what they’ve done, has been a testament to them.

"The sheer commitment that they show – their employees and the people and to the sport – I’m not going to say it’s second to none, but it’s pretty bloody [close].

As well as the main Red Bull team, Red Bull also owns the sister AlphaTauri squad, although its future has been in doubt since the death of the team's co-owner, energy drinks billionaire Dieter Mateschitz last year.

Webber claimed nine wins during his time with Red Bull and all but one of his 42 podium finishes was with the team. He also notched up 13 pole positions and came third in the drivers championship on three occasions.

The Australian is now a F1 presenter and analyst for Channel 4 television's coverage of the sport, as well as helping to manage the career of compatriot Oscar Piastri's career at McLaren.

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