For that first season Red Bull recruited Christian Horner, boss of the immensely successful Arden F3000 team to be its founding team principal, while the hugely experienced David Coulthard was hired to lead the team on the track. The team’s second car was shared by two Red Bull Junior Team drivers: Austria’s Christian Klien and Italian rookie Vitantonio Liuzzi. The team went on to finish seventh in the Constructors’ Championship.

Off-track, the team’s impact was just as immediate, as it brought a ‘work hard, play hard’ attitude to the paddock. With its three-storey Energy Station as its travelling HQ, the team brought haute cuisine, DJs, pop-up parties and intense games of table football to F1 in order to liven up the post-session evenings. Today the mega-motorhomes are a familiar sight behind the garages; in 2005 it looked like a spaceship had dropped into the paddock.

Although that first season represented a bright start, the team was in no mood to rest on its laurels, and the next major addition came at the end of 2005 in the shape of respected designer Adrian Newey. Although his contribution to the team’s second challenger, the RB2, would be minimal, Newey’s experience, winning pedigree and vision would have a major impact in the future. Under his guidance the technical departments began to put in place systems that would ultimately yield major benefits. The first hint of what was to come appeared when David Coulthard delivered a faultless drive in the RB2 at the Monaco GP to secure third place and the team’s first podium finish.

As the team prepared Newey’s first real design, the RB3, for 2007, more major additions were announced in the shape of a switch to Renault power and the signing of highly-rated Australian driver Mark Webber. In time, both would help the team make the next step forward, out of the midfield and towards the front of the grid.

The team climbed to fifth in the Constructors’ Championship, with the on-track highlight being Webber’s third-place podium finish at the European Grand Prix. The next year brought another top-three finish, this time supplied by Coulthard in Canada; it would prove to his final visit to the podium before bowing out of F1 driving at the end of the year.

The retirement of the experienced Scot left a void but the team was fortunate that waiting in the wings was a young graduate of the Red Bull Junior Team, impatient to take his shot at greatness. Having recently taken a stunning maiden F1 win at the Italian GP while racing for Red Bull Racing’s sister team, Scuderia Toro Rosso, Sebastian Vettel had marked himself out as a future superstar and the team now offered him the perfect platform from which to seize glory.

A comprehensive set of rule changes for 2009 gave the team the chance to build a radically different car and when the RB5 proved to be a front-runner, both Webber and new boy Vettel didn’t waste any time in turning it into a winner. After an awesome effort from the team to get the car ready for the Chinese Grand Prix, Sebastian landed the team’s first win and Mark doubled the celebrations by backing-up Seb to deliver a first one-two finish. Five more wins, including Webber’s own maiden victory in Germany, followed and the team sealed second in the Constructors’ Championship and second in the Drivers’ battle for Vettel.

The following year saw the team achieve the ambitions laid down five years earlier. Webber and Vettel were title contenders throughout, and after they had secured the team’s first Constructors’ title with a one-two finish in Brazil, Sebastian took the Drivers’ Championship in Abu Dhabi with his fifth win of the season. A title double after just six seasons in the sport was a remarkable achievement.

That 2010 success provided the springboard for a dominant 2011. Having refined the design philosophy begun with RB5, the team allied excellent pace to strong, improved reliability and the RB7 propelled Red Bull Racing to a second team title and Vettel to another Drivers’ crown and a host of new records, including a new standard of 15 pole positions in a single season.

It’s usually said that the first victory is the hardest but many of the staff walking past the 2012 Constructors’ and Drivers’ Championship trophies in reception at the factory might argue otherwise.

The dominance of 2011 did not continue into 2012 but the ultimate successes of last year were all the sweeter for having to fight tooth and nail through a truly thrilling season. Retaining both Championships in 2012 required every department to dig deep and prove themselves all over again.

The achievement meant that Red Bull Racing became the fourth member of an exclusive club of teams to have won three consecutive titles – a far cry from the newcomer that had taken its place on the grid for the first time just eight seasons before.