Red Bull Racing hits the streets with NYC, Dallas Show Runs

In advance of next week’s United States GP on the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, Red Bull Racing is taking to the streets with New York City and Dallas Show Runs that take their show cars to a new level.

Last week the Red Bull car was put to its paces in the Big Apple and on October 16 at 10 a.m. local time, the Red Bull car will blaze around the streets of the Harwood district of Big D.

Fresh from his third podium of the season in the Turkish GP, Sergio Perez will be behind the wheel.

Detuned only slightly, with ride heights altered to allow for bumpy city streets, fans have an opportunity to get up close to Formula 1 action even if they cannot make the trip down to Austin for the annual show. The tires used for the Show Runs are not the same as will be contested at COTA next week, but the car is otherwise genuine. In fact, this RB7 race car was used by Mark Webber in the 2011 season.

Saturday will be the first time an F1 has run in the city since Keke Rosberg won the ill-fated 1984 Dallas Grand Prix on a hot slick track that July.

📍 The City That Never Sleeps 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/rN5VgWAQob

— Red Bull Racing Honda (@redbullracing) October 12, 2021

The Show Runs have been an incredibly popular addition to Red Bull Racing’s marketing strategy with events held in more than 50 countries. The team sends a dozen or more mechanics to prepare the car. To insure that the run goes off without a hitch, Red Bull brings two cars to each city in the highly unlikely event that the car hits one a barrier or experiences a mechanical issue.

The car on display this weekend has never crashed in a Show Run and since Webber took good care of his equipment, the mechanics believed it has never seen contact.

But city streets are narrow, compared to permanent road courses, and with water barriers keeping the car and spectators separated, Dallas will be even narrower than usual. This serpentine route along Nowitzki Way, Houston Street, Field Street, Harry Hines Boulevard and Hunt Street is a 0.4-mile course with four runs scheduled.

In between the runs, moto stunt rider Aaron Colton will provide additional entertainment. Colton first climbed on a bike at the tender age of two and became the youngest XDL National Stunt Riding Champion at 15.

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INDIANAPOLIS — The first Indy 500 victory for Josef Newgarden also was the richest in race history from a record 2023 purse of just more than $17 million.

The two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion, who continued his celebration Monday morning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway earned $3.666 million for winning the 107th running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

The purse and winner’s share both are the largest in the history of the Indianapolis 500.

It’s the second consecutive year that the Indy 500 purse set a record after the 2022 Indy 500 became the first to crack the $16 million mark (nearly doubling the 2021 purse that offered a purse of $8,854,565 after a crowd limited to 135,000 because of the COVID-19 pandemic).

The average payout for IndyCar drivers was $500,600 (exceeding last year’s average of $485,000).

Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Roger Penske, whose team also fields Newgarden’s No. 2 Dallara-Chevrolet, had made raising purses a priority since buying the track in 2020. But Penske but was unable to post big money purses until the race returned to full capacity grandstands last year.

The largest Indy 500 purse before this year was $14.4 million for the 2008 Indy 500 won by Scott Dixon (whose share was $2,988,065). Ericsson’s haul made him the second Indy 500 winner to top $3 million (2009 winner Helio Castroneves won $3,048,005.

Runner-up Marcus Ericsson won $1.043 million after falling short by 0.0974 seconds in the fourth-closest finish in Indy 500 history.

The 107th Indy 500 drew a crowd of at least 330,000 that was the largest since the sellout for the 100th running in 2016, and the second-largest in more than two decades, according to track officials.

“This is the greatest race in the world, and it was an especially monumental Month of May featuring packed grandstands and intense on-track action,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said in a release. “Now, we have the best end card possible for the 107th Running of the Indianapolis 500: a record-breaking purse for the history books.”

Benjamin Pedersen was named the Indy 500 rookie of the year, earning a $50,000 bonus.

The race’s purse is determined through contingency and special awards from IMS and IndyCar. The awards were presented Monday night in the annual Indy 500 Victory Celebration at the JW Marriott in downtown Indianapolis.

The payouts for the 107th Indy 500:

1. Josef Newgarden, $3,666,000
2. Marcus Ericsson, $1,043,000
3. Santino Ferrucci, $481,800
4. Alex Palou, $801,500
5. Alexander Rossi, $574,000
6. Scott Dixon, $582,000
7. Takuma Sato, $217,300
8. Conor Daly, $512,000
9. Colton Herta, $506,500
10. Rinus VeeKay, $556,500
11. Ryan Hunter‐Reay, $145,500
12. Callum Ilott, $495,500
13. Devlin DeFrancesco, $482,000
14. Scott McLaughlin, $485,000
15. Helio Castroneves, $481,500
16. Tony Kanaan, $105,000
17. Marco Andretti, $102,000
18. Jack Harvey, $472,000
19. Christian Lundgaard, $467,500
20. Ed Carpenter, $102,000
21. Benjamin Pedersen (R), $215,300
22. Graham Rahal, $565,500*
23. Will Power, $488,000
24. Pato O’Ward, $516,500
25. Simon Pagenaud, $465,500
26. Agustín Canapino (R), $156,300
27. Felix Rosenqvist, $278,300
28. Kyle Kirkwood, $465,500
29. David Malukas, $462,000
30. Romain Grosjean, $462,000
31. Sting Ray Robb (R), $463,000
32. RC Enerson (R), $103,000
33. Katherine Legge, $102,000

*–Broken down between two teams, $460,000 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, $105,500 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing/Cusick Motorsports

Red Bull Racing hits the streets in New York, Dallas with Show Runs

Winner Josef Newgarden earns $3.666 million from a record Indy 500 purse of $17 million

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