F1 icon reveals Red Bull's heartwarming gesture to bereaved families

Red Bull

F1 icon reveals Red Bull's heartwarming gesture to bereaved families

Red Bull sponsors a variety of athletes who compete in extreme sports

Sheona Mountford F1 Journalist

Motorsport journalist working in F1 since 2024.

Saturday 25 April 2026 15:57

F1 icon and former Red Bull star David Coulthard has revealed how the energy drinks brand has helped the families of their athletes who have died doing what they loved.

Far from just being a Formula 1 team, the Red Bull brand encompasses a broad range of extreme sports they sponsor, including BASE jumping, cliff diving and even Felix Baumgartner's famous jump from a balloon in the stratosphere.

Sadly however, these extreme sports can also have tragic consequences, with the Red Bull brand coming under fire when their seventh fatality occurred in 2013 following the death of Guido Gehrmann. The 38-year-old was killed trying to crash-land his Bede BD-5 microjet whilst returning from a Red Bull sponsored air acrobatics event.

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The youngest Red Bull athlete to be killed was 14-year-old Toriano Wilson, who died at a motorcycling event in 2008. The following year Ueli Gegenschatz died after attempting to parachute from a 288-feet tall tower in Switzerland, but was blown by the wind against a building and fell to his death.

Following these deaths, Austrian broadcaster ARD showed a documentary, Red Bull's Dark Side, which looked into the death tolls linked to the extreme sports that Red Bull sponsored.

Now though, F1 icon Coulthard has spoken of the quiet way in which Red Bull supports bereaved families behind the scenes after such tragedies.

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Coulthard: Red Bull made sure families were taken care of

On a recent episode of the Up to Speed podcast, former Red Bull F1 driver Coulthard revealed how founder Dietrich Mateschitz and the Red Bull brand supported the bereaved families of extreme athletes who had been killed.

Mateschitz founded Red Bull in 1984 and brought the energy drinks project to Austria in 1987, eventually sponsoring Austrian racing driver Gerhard Berger before bringing the Red Bull name to Formula 1 in 2004. The Austrian entrepreneur passed away in 2022, and Coulthard revealed how he supported the loved ones of athletes behind the scenes.

"Red Bull are more than just a Formula 1 team. They are across so many extreme sports and tragically in pursuit of those thrills, there have been a number of athletes who have lost their lives," Coulthard explained.

"One thing that the late Mr [Dietrich] Mateschitz has always done, they never acknowledged in some sort of public statement in some sort of way, because society would suggest you must acknowledge something of their passing.

"What they do is make sure their families and their loved ones are taken care of in the best way they can, because Mr Mateschitz knew they would be doing it if they were a Red Bull athlete or not. They were following their passion."

Coulthard spoke eloquently about the topic as he touched on whether F1 world champion Max Verstappen should be allowed by the team to race at the terrifying Nurburgring in Germany. The Dutchman was involved in a race last weekend in which a 66-year-old driver lost his life.

"They [the tragic Red Bull athletes] were doing these extreme sports because they could and others didn't want to and others couldn't. Max is just one of those extreme athletes, but he does it with a Formula 1 car."

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F1 Red Bull David Coulthard