Dietrich Mateschitz, co-founder and owner of Red Bull, has died at the age of 78.

Axar.az reports that Red Bull confirmed Mateschitz’s passing ahead of qualifying for the United States Grand Prix, where the team can claim their fifth F1 constructors’ title.

Mateschitz founded Red Bull in the mid-1980s and turned the energy drink into a market leader, while showcasing the brand through a range of extreme sports.

Having initially been involved in F1 with Sauber in the 1990s and early 2000s, Mateschitz bought the Jaguar squad at the end of 2004 and rebranded it as a full-blown Red Bull team for the 2005 season.

He then bought the Minardi squad, renaming it Toro Rosso for 2006 and using the team as a vehicle to train promising drivers for the works Red Bull operation.

Steadily building up their operation over the following years, while signing the likes of design guru Adrian Newey and promoting the first of many Red Bull-backed drivers in Sebastian Vettel, pole positions, victories and world titles would ultimately flow.

Indeed, Vettel racked up four successive drivers’ titles from 2010 to 2013, with Red Bull also taking the constructors’ crowns in each of those years.

After a lean spell upon the arrival of F1’s turbo-hybrid era, a reunion with Honda led to another winning period, their latest star driver, Max Verstappen, claiming the 2021 and 2022 drivers’ titles, with the 2022 constructors’ set to follow.