Max Verstappen's F1 racer flies through the air to COTA -- literally! (MUST-SEE VIDEO)
It’s a bird, It’s a plane, No it’s the RB19 dangled above the Austin Skyline!
In Texas, the F1 teams know that they have to go bigger and better in honor of the Lone Star State. In order to do so, Oracle Red Bull enlisted the help of Dave Carapetyan -- also known as Texas Dave on Instagram. Carapetyan is the owner of Rally Ready in Dale, Texas, an accomplished Rally racer, and a 3x winner of the Pikes Peak Open Class.
The RB19 decorated in stars and stripes takes inspiration from the Red White and Blue track designs of The Circuit of Americas -- host of this weekend's Formula One race -- and its sweeping turns.
After a test day on Tuesday the crew at Rally Ready practiced flying the car around the ranch before flying the machine 27 miles to Oracle’s Austin Headquarters, the team’s title sponsor. Red Bull drivers Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez sat alongside former Red Bull reserve racer and current Alpha Tauri driver Daniel Ricciardo as the car -- hoisted in mid-air by a helicopter -- coasted the Austin skyline and Lady Byrd Lake before landing at the COTA Fan Fair, where thousands attended.
The liveries of both Perez and Verstappen’s RB19 were picked through the fan design content Make Your Mark Austin. The campaign will be used three times this year at each American F1 race, the Miami Grand Prix, this weekend's U.S. Grand Prix and the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix next month.
More than 2,000 liveries were submitted to the competition, which was ultimately won by Franco Cavallone, a 39-year-old graphic designer from Capitán Bermúdez, Argentina, who was inspired to submit after seeing a fellow Argentinian designer Martina Andriano’s winning design for the Miami Grand Prix.
Here's the awesome paint scheme the RedBull team drivers piloted at this year's F1 race at Circuit of the Americas. Photo courtesy RedBull Racing.
“The moment I was told I’d won it was a rollercoaster of emotions,” Cavallone said through the Red Bull Press release, “I was so happy. I remember when I first found out about Make Your Mark, I was watching the second practice session at the Miami GP - it was the first time I’d been to a race - and I found out the Oracle Red Bull Racing livery was designed by a fan from Argentina, like me."
Cavallone then continued, talking about his design influences.
“I thought about Austin and the Circuit of the Americas,” he said. “And (I) took inspiration from the stripes and stars, and sweeping red, white, and blue lines around the corners of the track. I even spoke to Martina, who won the Miami competition, for advice.
"I’m a freelance graphic designer and this is easily the most exciting thing I’ve ever designed! It’s like a dream that this is happening to me, seeing my design on the car will be the best day ever, I can’t wait to see it on track.”
Here's what the car looks like on the ground, which it plans on covering quite a bit in Sunday's race. Photo courtesy RedBull Racing.