Red Bull celebrate titles with doughnuts in Dubai

2013 F1 season

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Not content with Sebastian Vettel’s post-race celebration doughnuts in India – for which the team were fined ?óÔÇÜ?¼25,000 – Red Bull continued their championship celebrations in Dubai.

David Coulthard performed some more doughnuts on the helipad of the Burj Al Arab luxury hotel, 210 metres above the Emirati capital.

Red Bull clinched their fourth consecutive constructors’ championship in India and Vettel won the drivers’ title for the fourth year in a row.

2013 F1 season


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Image © Red Bull/Getty

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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39 comments on “Red Bull celebrate titles with doughnuts in Dubai”

  1. Fair play to DC. I would be far too frightened about driving off the helipad to do doughnuts in an F1 car on top of a hotel 200m up!

    1. aka Williams won’t let Maldonado do the same

      1. Man, just imagine a disaster\ horror movie – a la Sharknado – where many Madonados fall from the sky and people have to put themselves in a safe place.
        10\10 would watch again.

        1. lol
          Never watched Sharknado, but the trailer was promising. Maldonado will destroy it for sure

    2. I don’t think he’d have much of a problem, the car would land at about 230 km/h, nothing serious in an F1 car! :)

      1. Yeah, fair point. Would he die if he falls of that tower? Probably not ^^

    3. ….and for once I do not wish I could have a go in a F1 car.

      I don’t think I could stand on the helipad, let alone do that!

  2. Scary, saw some photos taken by a friend yesterday of the car being helicoptered on to the pad. I wondered what they were going to do with it up there. Now I know.

  3. WOW! I’ll never forget landing on the helipad there but to do doughnuts would be far to terrifying. I would be more worried that I would drive over the edge, after all it is not a massive helipad.

    1. There is two facts which you must keep in mind:

      1. These veteran F1 drivers know what they are doing
      2. They don’t fear anything

      So in that point of view, why not driving doughnuts on the helipad 200 meters up? DC didin’ do it for fun, but for the money, and got mucho dineros, $$$ :)

  4. And then Pirelli complained about DC and RB not following their guideline about tyres usage…

  5. You have to really feel for DC – He’s got to drive the 2009-2011 models for demo and TV purposes, but never in anger – when he took to the track alongside AN last year at Silverstone for the BBC, comparing the 2010 car to the 2008 (?) model, he admitted it was night and day, as did Adrian when he drove the car.

    He’d have probably never won a championship, but I suspect he had another win or two in him had he continued into 2009 in the RB5 – Of course, we can now all debate whether his retention would have been to Mark or Seb’s disappointment. :)

  6. wow, amazing idea.

    gotta give it to DC, its really look challenging trying to control F1 car doing donuts up in the sky with no room for error.

  7. ‘Hey David, want to celebrate another’s championship?’

    I think it’s strange that it’s not Vettel doing this. Maybe they were scared of another ‘testing row’

  8. The real shame about this is how hazy it has been in the UAE this last week. If it had been properly clear those images would have been even more amazing than they already are.

  9. They just solved the overtaking in run-off areas problem. Cliffs! Bet you you wouldn’t see any wheels out of the track.

  10. I agree it was a good idea, but started off concerned that maybe they hadn’t learned from Maria’s accident. No safety barriers, catch-fencing etc (though obviously no tail-lift lorry parked nearby). Then I get about half-way into it and noticed how perfect the doughnuts are… Is this some sort of auto-setting with the diff locked or something? DC’s pretty good but can he really do a dozen or so spins in one set of tyre marks unaided?!

    1. The donuts are far too perfect. Either they fully locked the front-left brake (but not sure that would be enough to stop the car from sliding) or they even attached the front-left wheel or suspension to the ground.

      @webbo82

      1. @mike-dee They normally wind the brake balance all the way to the front.

      2. Exactly, I agree with you mike, they must have looked into the safety of the stunt. DC is good and I love how he was checking the drop over the rail, as if… funny. Red Bull is like a goof Investment Bank, they have it all hedged.

        1. gooD* Investment Bank

  11. It is as if the car’s front end was somehow fixed. As soon as DC puts throttle, the car starts to swerve.

    1. Brake bias 100% front, as @keithcollantine mentions above.

  12. Surprised the Pirellis lasted long enough to complete a few donuts.

  13. I am impressed by how much work DC still does for Red Bull and still works for the BBC…bit of a conflict of interest really. But at least he’s a nice guy and I say for it…been a long time since the BBC was impartial!

    1. @georgetuk “…bit of a conflict of interest…”

      How so? Does DC have control over the Beeb’s advertising budget or something?

  14. The video has been taken down … :'(

  15. Fair play this looks dangerous.

    But, the way the car pivots around the front left is just un-natural, surely the car is tethered to the ground at this point – look at the rubber marks, when did a car ever pirouette in such a uniform way.

    Still a cool piece of video, and I’d have taken some safety precautions too if I was the production manager….

  16. Wow! Certainly seems odd that they took a car and team up there just for that…

    Even so, hopefully the BBC will have something to show /:)

  17. paul rodriguez
    31st October 2013, 15:43

    The front left doesn’t move an inch from its vertical axis…

    1. OmarR-Pepper (@)
      31st October 2013, 22:39

      Anyway, I wouldn’t do it, not even for a night in that 7 star hotel!!!!!

    2. Yeah, DC has the steering wheel hard over, but the inside front wheel is locked straight ahead, while the outboard front is turned in. Must have disengaged the steering and locked the left front into a pivot, probably using some sort of aircraft tie-down location in the helipad.

  18. I think lots of driver and team personal are staying in the hotel so for them it will be FUN

  19. New found respect for DC there. My fear of heights kicked into over drive just *watching* that video! :-o

  20. Can someone gues-timate the terminal speed of F1 car if it fell down? I mean, would it be too different from what we usually see?

    1. 231km/h or 64.16m/s
      Its pretty simple physics, Velocity(final)^2=Velocity(initial)^2+2xAccelerationxDistance, or V.final^2=0^2+2×9.8×210, which gives 4116, but you have to take the square root so it becomes 64.156 then times by 3.6 to change to km/h giving 230.96.

      Perfectly survivable by todays standards I would say, though that doesnt factor that the ground wont absorb much of the energy when it hits.

      Gotta love physics!

  21. This is the type of stuff that led me to cheer for RBR in the first place… they just seem to like to have fun!

  22. You can clearly see that the left front wheel is attached to a rotating plate, for example at 0:50 of the video. Still, a cool stunt!

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