Last weekend’s Circuit of the Americas race marked Red Bull’s return to the top echelon of stock car racing.
Teenage sensation Connor Zilisch made his highly-anticipated debut in the NASCAR Cup Series, carrying the famous red-and-blue colours of the energy drinks giant.
It was part of a deal Red Bull has signed with Trackhouse Racing that will also see it become the primary backer of the #88 Chevrolet of Shane van Gisbergen at five races in 2025, starting with the Las Vegas event on 16 March.
NASCAR is very much back on Red Bull’s agenda, 14 years after it pulled out its own team from the series after mixed results and unfulfilled promise.
It was in 2006 when Red Bull made its first foray into NASCAR after taking over Team Penske’s former facility in Mooresville.
However, it’s safe to say that it made an inauspicious start to its most high-profile venture in North America.
Despite recruiting 1988 champion Bill Elliott to pilot its Dodge Charger, Red Bull failed to even qualify for its first race at Charlotte.
Further attempts at Atlanta and Texas with Champ Car racer A. J. Allmendinger also ended in disappointment, and the team ended the year without any starts to its name.
Nevertheless, Red Bull pressed on with its plans to enter the full season in 2007, hiring Brian Vickers from Hendrick Motorsports to partner Allmendinger in a two-car Toyota effort.
But not only Red Bull was new to NASCAR that season, even its manufacturer partner Toyota was also making its debut in the Cup Series. With so little experience in the entire operation, 2007 was always going to be a baptism of a fire.
As it turned out, Vickers failed to qualify for 13 of the 36 races, while Allmendinger – who had a promising career in open-wheel racing but was new to stock cars – was only able to start 17 races.
Red Bull clearly needed to overhaul its team, and the decision to sign Jay Frye – who later became the president of IndyCar – to run the squad was seen as the key to unlocking the potential of the team.
There was a clear upturn in performance thereafter with NASCAR’s new-gen car, particularly on the Vickers side of the garage, with the Thomasville native qualifying for all 36 races and finishing on the podium at Pocono.
Allmendinger’s struggles to adapt to stock car racing, however, continued and he was let go by the team before the end of the year, with former F1 driver Scott Speed brought in to take over the vacant seat in 2009.
Speed, like his predecessor, found the going tough in NASCAR, but by this time Vickers had grown into his role as a team leader and was now a serious force to be reckoned with.
At the Michigan International Speedway, Vickers hunted down Jimmie Johnson as the NASCAR legend began to run out of fuel, overtaking him with a less than a handful of laps to go to claim Red Bull’s first Cup Series victory.
It was a culmination of the efforts made by the team over the last few years, and was a clear sign that the project was now on the right path.
The enthusiasm was high for the 2010 season but Vickers had to withdraw from the championship after just 12 rounds after being diagnosed with blood clots in his legs and lungs.
A rotating cast of drivers drove the #83 Toyota for the remainder of the year, with the lack of continuing hurting the squad’s chances.
Speed also failed to deliver in his second season in NASCAR and was subsequently dropped by the team at the end of 2010.
Speed was replaced by multiple race winner Kasey Kahne, while Vickers’ recovery from illness also uplifted Red Bull’s fortunes in 2011.
It turned out to be Red Bull’s best season in the Cup Series, with Kahne ending the season a strong 12th in the championship after winning the penultimate round of the year at Phoenix.
By this time, though, Red Bull had already decided to shut the door on its NASCAR project.
The Austrian company cited a lack of results and failure to appeal to the target 18-34 demographic (which had never been NASCAR’s strong suit). All its assets were sold to the team that became BK Racing.
To this date, many believe that Red Bull’s NASCAR programme could have been a lot more successful had it entered the series in a different era.
Its return to the series as a sponsor shows that it still believes in the marketing potential of NASCAR and, while a return as a full-fledged team may not be on the cards, its very presence is a huge boost for America’s biggest racing series.
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