Red Bull and Aston Martin have gone together like caviar and champagne (or steak and ale, if you prefer) of late, and that continued on the racetrack earlier this month. Preparing for the upcoming Austrian Grand Prix, Red Bull Racing teammates Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen had an unusual warmup race. They took to the Red Bull Ring to race a pair of Aston Martin Vanquish convertibles ... with camping trailers in tow. Naturally, the race car drivers pushed (or, we suppose, pulled) the caravans to the limit ... and well beyond.
With just over a month to go before the Austrian Grand Prix comes to the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Red Bull is hyping the race in a big way with its oddball video.
Before lining up on the track, each driver's Aston Martin Vanquish Volante was hitched to a specially prepared caravan that had been stripped, shod in Pirelli racing slicks and brushed in Red Bull livery to match its speedy tow car. Verstappen stepped inside a 595-hp Vanquish S Volante hitched up to a charcoal and orange #33 caravan, and Ricciardo grabbed the wheel of a 565-hp Vanquish Volante pulling a charcoal and blue #3 caravan. Each caravan added roughly 880 lb (400 kg) behind the bumper.
The ensuing race wasn't exactly a hard-contested nail biter, and we'd say both Verstappen and Ricciardo came out winners, quite clearly having a blast seeing how much abuse the trailers would take before disintegrating.
"I wasn't sure if it would be very controlled and just for the 'glamour shots' or if we could really have some fun," said Ricciardo. "Fortunately, we got to have some fun."
Each caravan turned and snaked admirably at first, one-wheeling through corners before the rigors of F1-style track driving eventually ripped body from trailer bed.
"We were pretty sure that we were going to crash [the caravans]," Verstappen recalled. It wasn't on purpose, but then I started drifting the car a bit and I could see in the mirror that the caravan was on one wheel!"
Needless to say, both Verstappen and Ricciardo had to find alternative overnight accommodations that evening.
There's not much else to break down about this particular race day, but you'll definitely want to watch the video.
Source: Red Bull
The trailers look like just shells. They did not look like real trailers when they came apart.
Now if Red Bull could just give these guys a fast race car ...