SAO PAULO: Red Bull came into Formula One in 2005 as loud, young and irreverent newcomers that some saw as too fun-loving to mount a serious challenge for the highest honors. Embracing his happy drivers, team boss Christian Horner finally dispelled that notion in Brazil Sunday with the team's first constructors' championship. “It's an unbelievable result. In six years this team has come from one that nobody really considered seriously and that they perhaps thought was a party team,” he told reporters after Sebastian Vettel led Mark Webber in a one-two finish. “Six-and-a-half years ago (billionaire owner) Dietrich Mateschitz had a vision and today we've fulfilled that, which is just an unbelievable feeling. “I think Red Bull as soon as they joined Formula One brought a new energy and did things differently,” added Horner. “It didn't mean that we were any less serious or committed than any other team. Just different.” Red Bull, funded by the Austrian-based energy drink company, took over the Jaguar Racing team at the end of 2004 after Ford pulled out and announced they would close it down if no buyer could be found. Jaguar never won a race, unlike the Stewart team founded by triple champion Jackie Stewart that Ford had bought at the end of 1999, and never finished higher than seventh in the championship. Red Bull, using the same Milton Keynes factory that was previously home to Jaguar and Stewart, were seventh in their first two seasons but the path to glory was clearly marked out when technical head Adrian Newey arrived from McLaren in 2006. Designer of championship-winning cars for Williams and McLaren, the balding boffin completed his hat trick Sunday with admirers hailing him as one of the greatest technical brains of any era in the sport. “I didn't have a firm target in mind,” said Newey, recalling those early days. “When I joined Red Bull it was an aspiration but aspiring to do something and achieving it can be two very different things.” Red Bull's title meant that for the second year running an independent team with a ‘customer engine' had beaten the works outfits but, thanks to Mateschitz's deep pockets, they are no minnows. This season they have won eight races, finished one-two four times and taken 14 pole positions. They have the resources and the people to match anything their rivals can throw at them. Webber and German team mate Vettel now go into the final race in Abu Dhabi fighting each other and Ferrari's Fernando Alonso for the title. Alonso is eight points clear of Webber, 15 ahead of Vettel. Unlike Ferrari, which put all its efforts controversially behind Alonso early on, both Red Bull drivers will be allowed to compete on equal terms right down to the last corner. One Red Bull driver, or maybe both, will be disappointed next weekend but Sunday both enjoyed the moment.
