Red Bull And Formula One In Austin

It was an up and down week for Formula One fans in Austin. Red Bull brought their F1 car to Austin this past week amidst confusion and perhaps a missed opportunity or two.

As of Monday (August 15), they had planned a demonstration run for Saturday, August 20, though they had not formally confirmed nor denied the weekend event. This was exciting news for the people of Austin, as it would be the first time that an F1 car would be fired up in anger here. I for one was looking forward to it. Red Bull typically does a great job when it comes to F1 promotional events – just take a look at the video (below) from the event in Belfast.

From there, it all went a little weird with a rather strange series of events. I was left wondering – did a great opportunity to promote F1 in Austin get squandered?

Fans were anxiously awaiting further news of the upcoming event. As of Wednesday August 17, three days before the event, the permit filed with the city was still pending approval.

Early Thursday morning, Red Bull released a statement:

“Due to feasibility, a formal Formula One show car demonstration that is open to the public will not be executed this week … However, in an effort to bring fans up-close and personal to Formula One, the Red Bull Racing show car will be on display in front of the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum this Saturday from noon to 2 p.m.”

Shortly thereafter, it was announced that they would also be showing the car at Austin Infiniti on Thursday from 4:00 to 6:00 pm. It was obvious that they were still intent on coming to Austin, and that they were still trying to keep the fans involved in some way or another.

Thursday afternoon arrived, and I for one was there anxiously awaiting the Red Bull arrival. At 4:00 pm, we were told that the car and crew was scheduled to arrive at 4:30. At 6:00, their F1 car finally arrived.

I can say, without hesitation, that it was worth the wait. It was the first time since about 1975 or so that I have been that close to full-blooded F1 technology. It was a static demo – no wailing V10 engine revving to 18,000 rpm – but it was great nonetheless.

The storyline then took another strange turn of events. David Coulthard – the former F1 driver that has done the driving at these events for Red Bull – was in the midst of flying to Austin on Thursday for an event that had supposedly been canceled. What?

At 4:28 pm on Friday, the Austin American-Statesman reported that the Red Bull permit had been approved, but that the filming was considered to be closed set and not a public event.

Question: how in earth does an F1 car at full throttle at the Capitol ever qualify as a “closed set”? And if they are going to be there for this “closed set” anyways, why not put the mechanisms in place to open it up properly to the public (as Red Bull have done many times before) and take advantage of this amazing marketing and promotions opportunity?

On Saturday, Coulthard ran the car up and down Congress Avenue just north of the Capitol – unbeknownst to most of Austin, self included. It was a missed opportunity to promote this global event, if ever there was one.

I understand that sometimes glitches in planning arise that prevent events from operating smoothly. But there does seem to be a very curious sequence of events that unfolded last week. Arriving at your own event on Thursday 2 hours later than advertised certainly isn’t a positive. Sometimes these things happen. Approving a permit just hours before the event seems rather strange. Making it a “closed set” makes it even more difficult to understand after doing all the work of getting this car and crew to Austin in the first place.

Was this a function of poor planning? Red Bull seem be pretty successful at pulling off some pretty extreme events at times.

Or was it Austin City Council who left the permit “pending approval” until the day before the event? There does appear to be a healthy dose of disdain from some in this community (including some in City Council) for the upcoming Formula One event in 2012. On one hand, City Council wants Austin to be a true “international” city, but they want to make sure that F1 realizes that they hold the reins tightly.

Little do they know who really holds the reins in all of this: Bernie Ecclestone. Other cities have learned the hard way that whether they want to believe it or not, Bernie is the man with the plan and the money.

This could have all been such an amazing series of events, and we can only hope that Red Bull (or any other F1 team for that matter) will have another proper event in the streets of Austin over the next year. Just in case you wondered, this is what it looks like when they do it properly – in Belfast – population 267,500.

Here are some photos from Saturday’s showing at the Bob Bullock Texas State History museum. Ah, the beauty of a well-designed and immaculately prepared piece of F1 technology.

Photo credits: abesselink