Red Bull sets its sights on title

Every team in Formula One ultimately wants to win the title but for some that's less likely than others. After just one competitive season, albeit following Jaguar's previous years, Red Bull is perhaps a little over-ambitious to already be talking about the championship but the team appears to be committed to the long-term future.

Christian Horner and and Dietrich Mateschitz.

Photo by xpb.cc.

One advantage that Red Bull now has that its immediate rivals don't is Adrian Newey and if anyone can design a winning machine, Newey can. He produced the cars that won a total of nine titles for Williams and three for McLaren. Despite Renault taking the top honours this season, the McLaren MP4-20 was widely considered to be the class of the field.

Red Bull sporting director Christian Horner, understandably, has confidence in Newey's abilities. "His track record speaks for itself," Horner told the BBC. "He's won more than 100 grands prix with his cars and 12 world championships. And to further emphasise his importance, since he left Williams, the team have only won about 10 races."

Newey said that he is excited at the prospect of working with a developing team and Horner believes his ambitions are far from realized. "Adrian's got a lot of motivation to take on a new challenge in a smaller team and is hungry for even more success," he commented.

Newey does not officially join Red Bull until February so the car for the start of next year will not benefit from his experience. But Horner is looking to the rest of the season and the future, and has his sights set on the steps that need to be taken; the podium, the victories and perhaps even the championship.

"The car will pretty much be on the way to Bahrain by the time he arrives but he'll still have input into its development over the course of the season," Horner said of Newey's influence. "His main focus will be the 2007 car. From there our aspirations are to compete at the front, win races and ultimately win world championships."