I was Red Bull’s first F1 driver, but I nearly quit after one lap

David Coulthard has revealed he came close to turning his back on Red Bull after just a single installation lap in testing prior to the team’s Formula 1 debut in 2005.

Thirteen-time grand prix winner Coulthard was the driver Red Bull chose to lead its ambitious project in F1 two decades ago, with the Scotsman bringing more than a decade of grand prix experience with Williams and McLaren.

Red Bull’s F1 team was born out of the ill-fated Jaguar operation, and many were sceptical that an energy drinks company could compete with manufacturers and purebred racing outfits at the top level of motorsport.

Coulthard was already apprehensive about joining the Milton Keynes outfit when it operated as Jaguar but things moved forward when it was taken over by the Austrian giant, and he agreed to do a two-day test at Jerez at the end of 2004.

However, his first impression of the team was so poor that he wanted to walk away after just a single installation in the rebranded Jaguar R5. At that time, Coulthard hadn’t even signed a contract to race for Red Bull in 2005.

“We agreed that I would go and test the Jaguar car at Jerez at the end of the season, but with stickers on it saying Red Bull, and I was meant to do two days,” Coulthard recalled on the High Performance Podcast.

“Mark Gillan was still there as head of engineering. On the morning of the first day, I'm coming out of my motorhome and he starts shouting at me, ‘get in the car, get in the car’.

“I'm like this guy is a bit uptight. He is like, 'We've got to be first out at 9 o'clock'. Of course, the track was dusty as hell in the first one. Everyone would do one installation lap. So, you wouldn't want to be the first out. You wanted to maybe 9:05 or something so you didn't pick up stones or debris. 

“So I do the installation lap and get out of the car, phone [my manager] Martin [Brundle] and say 'get me out of here, I will not test this car tomorrow'.

“Martin was like you said you would do the two days. I said, ‘I'm not contracted, I'm doing today, I'm going to discover about the team, but I'm out of here, I'm not gonna let someone shout at me like a deranged lunatic’. For whatever their issues are, we can deal with that down the line, but I don't need this here.”

How Red Bull convinced David Coulthard to sign the contract

What swayed Coulthard’s decision was an unexpected encounter with Red Bull’s co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz, who had flown to Spain for the team’s first test.

Mateschitz’s vision for Red Bull convinced Coulthard it was the right place to be and he soon accepted an offer to race for the team the following year.

“Mr Mateschitz came to the test,” he recalled. “I met with him, discussed what I thought the undertaking would be in terms of investment and time. And he was like, ‘first we get credibility, then we get world championships’. 

“He said, ‘I want to win world championships. It's going to take time, I get that. That's why we have you with your experience within the team.’

“So I get away from there, fly to sign the contract in Austria with Mr Mateschitz because I hadn't signed the contract at that point.”

Prior to the test, Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko had offered Coulthard a bare-bones contract where any shortfall in the salary would be offset by advertising space on his race suit and helmet, which he would then be able to sell to sponsors.

“I don't think Helmut really thought I was that interested or represented Red Bull, older generation and everything,” said the 54-year-old. "He made an offer and my cost of living was more than what they were offering to pay. 

“So we did a bit of negotiation, he wouldn't budge on the numbers, but I got a whole  bunch of badges (advertising space) on my race suit and helmet which have value.”

But following his trip to Austria to sign the contract, Coulthard explained to Mateschitz that the idea was not practical for a racing driver, and an amicable solution was found.

“I said we should address the fact that we have all these badges on my suit because in the contract it says I can have any sponsor that doesn't conflict with the team's sponsor,” Coulthard recalled.

“So I said, I've got EasyJet, I've got ‘Pink Elephant Parking’, ‘Yellow Banana R Us’ - I just dreamt up all these names of colourful companies that the badges were going to be all over the suit and helmet. 

“I went, ‘we should focus on trying to build a winning team. I don't think I should spend time going out selling these spaces, entertaining these companies to give them value on the sale of those spaces. I want to focus 100% on driving this car, understanding the team and hopefully building future success’. And he went, ‘Absolutely’.

“There is a company called Nielsen which gives reports on how visible a suit is or a driver. He said, ‘Should we use their report to give a valuation on those numbers’. I said, ‘that's fine’.

“He said, ‘Go agree with Christian Horner’. So I did that, sold all those spaces back to the team, took away a distraction from my life, brought the salary to a point where I could actually put beans on toast on the table.

“And that began the journey that led to all the future success [for Red Bull] that started after I retired.”