Red Bull Racing traces its lineage to Stewart Grand Prix, founded by former World Champion Jackie Stewart in 1997. Ford purchased the team at the end of 1999 and rebranded it Jaguar Racing, achieving little competitive success across five seasons. When Ford decided it could no longer justify the expenditure, Jaguar Racing was put up for sale in September 2004. Red Bull GmbH, the Austrian energy drinks company, agreed to purchase the team on 15 November 2004, with Ford reportedly asking only a symbolic US$1 in exchange for a commitment to invest US$400 million across three seasons. Christian Horner was installed as team principal and David Coulthard was recruited as lead driver.
Red Bull had previously been involved in Formula One as a sponsor of the Sauber team from 1995 to 2004, and owner Dietrich Mateschitz had backed Gerhard Berger's career from 1989. Purchasing Jaguar marked the transition from sponsor to constructor.
Red Bull's debut season in 2005 was immediately more productive than Jaguar's best years, finishing sixth in the Constructors' Championship with 34 points. Coulthard proved a dependable lead driver. In 2006 the team signed a customer Ferrari engine deal and hired Adrian Newey, the highly successful McLaren technical director, as chief technical officer. Newey's arrival fundamentally changed the team's ambitions. The team scored its first podium at Monaco in 2006 with Coulthard finishing third.
For 2007, Red Bull switched to customer Renault engines and debuted Newey's first proper Red Bull chassis. Sebastian Vettel joined the team for 2009, replacing the retiring Coulthard. The team won its first race at the 2009 Chinese Grand Prix with Vettel, and then delivered the double — Drivers' and Constructors' titles — for four consecutive seasons from 2010 through 2013.
The 2010 title fight went to the final race in Abu Dhabi, with Vettel winning both the Grand Prix and the championship on the same day. The 2011 season was more dominant, with Vettel winning 11 races. In 2013, Vettel won nine consecutive races in the second half of the season, a streak that broke McLaren's record of eight consecutive wins from the 1988 season — which had itself been powered by Honda engines. During this period Red Bull became the first Austrian-licensed team to win a Formula One Constructors' Championship.
After the Renault relationship deteriorated and Red Bull trialled Renault engines under the TAG Heuer name from 2016 to 2018, the team switched to a works partnership with Honda in 2019. The transition proved transformative. Max Verstappen won the first victory of the Honda hybrid era at the 2019 Austrian Grand Prix. The partnership was building steadily toward a championship challenge when Honda announced its withdrawal from Formula One after 2021.
In 2021, Verstappen won the World Drivers' Championship in one of the most contested title fights in history, going to the final lap of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix tied on points with Lewis Hamilton. It was Honda's first championship in thirty years. Honda subsequently agreed to continue supplying Red Bull's two teams through 2025, initially under the Red Bull Powertrains branding and later as Honda RBPT.
The 2022 and 2023 seasons saw Red Bull achieve near-total dominance. Verstappen won 15 of 22 races in 2022, a single-season record at that time, and the team won the Constructors' Championship. In 2023, Red Bull became the only team in Formula One history to win 21 of 22 races in a season. In 2024 Verstappen won his fourth consecutive Drivers' Championship, though McLaren took the Constructors' title. In 2025, Verstappen missed out to Lando Norris for the Drivers' Championship; McLaren again won the Constructors' crown.
Following Honda's formal withdrawal after 2021, Red Bull established Red Bull Powertrains and signed a deal with Ford to badge and collaborate on their power units from 2026, marking Ford's return to Formula One for the first time since 2004. The partnership was accompanied by Red Bull commissioning a new wind tunnel, due for operation by 2026. Verstappen and Sergio Pérez's replacement were retained as drivers into the new era.
Red Bull Racing's trajectory from a rebranded midfield team in 2005 to the most successful constructor of the 2020s stands as one of the most remarkable builds in Formula One history. The combination of Adrian Newey's chassis design philosophy, Christian Horner's team management, and the talent of Vettel and then Verstappen produced two separate eras of dominance less than a decade apart. The team's eight Drivers' Championships and six Constructors' Championships place it among the sport's all-time leading constructors.