Red Bull F1 & Bath Rugby Face Off In An 'Car' Vs 'Forwards' Scrum Stunt

One F1 car took on a forward pack of eight rugby players in a scrum stunt to promote Bath Rugby’s new partnership with Red Bull.

The face-off saw Red Bull Racing’s the double title-winning RB8 F1 car take on 900kg of human muscle at Bath’s Farleigh House training ground.

Three-time grand prix winner Daniel Ricciardo was at the wheel of the 200-plus mph, 750 brake horsepower racing car for the world-first challenge – which used a specially-altered scrum machine.

To see who won the battle of man versus machine, both red Bull and Bath Rugby have released an online video on www.redbull.com of the scrum contest to promote their new alliance.

To support the central spot, there is also an accompanying behind-the-scenes web film, social media amplification from both partners across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and a set of PR assets that include a series of stunt photographs and an exclusive interview with Ricciardo.

To add to the drama of the contest, the Bath players were kept in the dark about what kind of opposition they were going to scrimmage against right up until the V8 car came roaring down the gravel drive of the club’s training facility.

‘I respect them a lot as athletes. They’re big, powerful, they get up from big hits and they know that’s part of it,’ Ricciardo commented.

‘I didn’t quite understand what they wanted to do at first, I was like, ‘How do you do that?’ But obviously now that I’ve seen it, I think it’s really cool. I like things that are different and that no-one’s ever done before, so it’s cool to be a part of that idea. Then the backdrop and everything at Bath is very cool too. You can always learn something, and I think any professional athlete has something to offer, whether it’s a training method or a nutritional thing or a psychology thing or whatever. So I was interested to see a little bit about what they do, what their workouts are like. The kind of size that they have doesn’t happen overnight!’

Comment

Ever since ‘Stratos’ (see case study), whenever you see Red Bull, you also think ‘stunning stunts’.

And the racing team fulfils this role as much as any other part of the drinks brand’s expanding property portfolio.

After all, this rugby scrum stunt follows hot on the heels of Red Bull F1’s stunning snow stunt earlier in January.

Follows the Red Bull F1 Snow Stunt

You already know that F1 cars are incredibly capable on the road and the track, but have you ever wondered how an F1 car would do on snow? If so, wonder no more.

This saw driver Max Verstappen fit his Red Bull F1 car with studded tyres and snow chains, take it to a ski resort of Kitzbühel and drive it on the slopes.

Red Bull and Verstappen himself rolled out several videos of the event.

This event was part of the promotional build-up to the legendary Hahnenkamm ski races – which culminate with the

The PR around the event was further fuelled by questions over whether Red Bull got official permission to take its F1 onto the Austrian slopes.

But then again, all publicity is good publicity right?

Links

Red Bull Website:

http://www.redbull.com/

Red Bull Twitter:

https://twitter.com/RedBullUK

Red Bull Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/redbull

Red Bull Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/redbull/

Red Bull YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/user/redbull