Video: Pierre Gasly takes screaming V10 Red Bull RB1 up Goodwood Hill

18th May 2020

Seán Ward

A few weeks ago we asked which modern era of Formula 1 you preferred the sound of. Was it the screaming V10 era of the late nineties and early noughties, or maybe the years of the high-revving V8? Or perhaps you like the take-no-prisoners turbo-V6 cars of the 1980s?

On GRR your feelings were quite clear. Around 50 per cent of you loved the brutal ‘80s monsters, but just under seven per cent of you like the naturally-aspirated V8s. The rest, on the other hand, appear to be V10 addicts. So to appeal to you today, our high-rpm friends, we bring you this: the Red Bull RB1.

It’s strange to look back through the history of Red Bull Racing to see a team that had everything to gain and nothing to lose. Back in 2005 it was the new team (rising from the ashes of Jaguar F1, formerly Stewart Grand Prix) with a young, fresh-faced team boss called Christian Horner at the helm, himself an F1 newbie. There were no championship trophies, no pole positions, no race wins – just a young team with big ambitions. The team’s first car was the Red Bull RB1.

Driven by David Coulthard, Christian Klein and Vitantonio Liuzzi (Klein and Liuzzi shared driving duties throughout the 2005 season), the RB1 used a naturally aspirated, 3.0-litre Cosworth V10 that revved to 18,000rpm.

It’s that wonderful engine you’re about to hear scream, this time at the hands of Pierre Gasly at the 2015 Goodwood Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard. At the time Gasly was a 19-year-old Red Bull test driver – now, of course, he’s in F1 full time, having started out with Red Bull’s sister team Toro Rosso in 2017, moved to Red Bull for 2019, then swapped back to Toro Rosso for the second half of 2019, the team that has now been renamed as AlphaTauri for 2020 and beyond.

Crank up the volume. This engine deserves an album.

Check out the new Red Bull RB16 2020 Formula 1 car here.