Last week, it was official: Formula 1 celebrates a new champ after Verstappen won the year’s final race. He broke Hamilton’s streak with four consecutive titles and ruined (or delayed) Hamilton’s chance to break the few remaining records he did not hold so far.
Verstappen’s title is a perfect occasion to recall our recent museum visit to Sinsheim, where the Technical Museum opened a new exhibition dedicated to Red Bull Racing (for more info, see their website). In the recently built Hall3 hosts another special exhibition after the highly praised show honouring the 100th anniversary of Alfa Romeo.
Sinsheim is one of the best places to celebrate Alfa’s 110th birthday
On 3,000 m², the exhibition showcases selected exhibits from various racing series and guide visitors through the colourful world of Red Bull Racing. Indeed there is a lot to show for, as Red Bull was successful in several areas. Nevertheless, its diverse mix of extreme sports makes a real difference.
Red Bull’s sponsorship efforts encompassed extreme sports events like cliff diving, BMX, skiing, flying, downhill or freeride mountain biking and skateboarding. Not to mention the guy who jumped out from space.
The headquarters of Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz is a must-see for all fans with his personal favourites from Cobra Helicopter through the stratocabin of Felix Baumgartner to Indycar race car (and of course, many F1 cars).
At Hangar 7 the private collection of the Red Bull founder resurrects the inner child in all of us
The Red Bull World of Racing exhibition in Sinsheim showcases specimens from most of these disciplines with a clear focus on motorsports.
Whether desert, snow or road – there is a lot to discover and marvel at, such as exhibits raced by Manuel Lettenbichler, Nasser Al-Attiyah or Sebastian Vettel.
Al-Attiyah was recalled with a Mini and a Toyota, while there are several bikes from various motorcycle series, where Red Bull actively participated, like the KTM Dakar team.
The trio of stock cars includes an Audi A5 DTM (Mattias Ekström drove an A5 with that livery), Marco Wittman’s BMW M4 from the DTM series and Drift racer Johannes Hountondji’s Nissan.
The crown jewel is, of course, the highly successful Red Bull Formula-1 team that just brought Max Verstappen to the top of the 2021 standings. Red Bull Racing was created after buying the ailing Jaguar factory team and fetching the world’s best star designer Adrian Newey.
Newey designed some of the best Grand Prix winning cars in the past few decades (such as the technologically most advanced Williams cars of the ’90s, the highly competitive McLaren Mercedes silver cars from the 2000s and the Red Bulls of 2010s). In some 30 years, he designed cars for four constructor champion teams gaining 10 titles.
The exhibition honoured him with the Red Bull X2010. This exhibit is a full-size, non-functioning decoy of the virtual prototype featured in the Gran Turismo video games. The digital concept was a response to Kazunori Yamauchi’s question: “If you built the fastest racing car on land, one that throws aside all rules and regulations, what would that car look like, how would it perform, and how would it feel to drive?”
The prototype was designed by Newey in conjunction with Yamauchi. It features enclosed wheels and a fan drive to increase low- and medium-speed downforce (much like in the Brabham BT46B). One could say this is the ultimate fan of Newey…
If the concept would be realised, it could probably outperform F1 cars in speed and handling.
The X 2010 is accompanied by an F1 race car, which must be an RBR14 from 2018, judging from the combination of Aston martin, TAG-Hauer (Renault) and Race nr 3 (that was often used by Daniel Ricciardo).
The podium also featured Dan Ticktum’s Volkswagen powered F3 car, winning Macau in 2018.
Being in Germany, the exhibition emphasised the incredible series of Sebastian Vettel four-time champ with Red Bull, commemorated with his champion car RBR9.
The Red Bull RB9 was designed for the 2013 Formula One, marking the end of the V8 era. The cars were driven by Mark Webber as sidekick and Sebastian Vettel as the hero, already claiming three titles in a row with the predecessors of this car. Vettel gave a nickname “Hungry Heidi” (to honour German model Heidi Klum), as he did for his previous racers.
The name brought him luck, as Vettel scored his fourth consecutive Drivers’ Championship title, at the Indian Grand Prix, after ten wins during the season. Red Bull brought home a sovereign constructor title, scoring a bit less than Mercedes and Ferrari together.
The exhibition encompassed cars from other F1 ventures of Red Bull, like the Red Bull sponsored Sauber Petronas cars, the 2012 Wings for Life charity car and an Alfa Tauri Honda.
The Red Bull World of Racing exhibition awaits visitors for quite some time, as it was extended to January 2023.
