Verstappen leads tributes to Red Bull founder Mateschitz

VIENNA: Formula One world champion Max Verstappen led the tributes on Sunday to Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz, who turned the energy drink into a worldwide success and pumped money into a title-winning F1 team and several football clubs.Mateschitz died on Saturday at the age of 78 after a long illness, having amassed a fortune estimated by Forbes at $27.4 billion (27.8 billion euros), making him Austria’s richest person.He took a sweet drink that was already popular in Asia for its apparent energy-giving properties and adapted it to Western tastes.Mateschitz was a savvy marketing man who popularised the Red Bull brand by associating it with sport, investing heavily in Formula One, football and extreme pursuits.Red Bull now employs 13,000 people in 172 countries with an annual turnover of around eight billion euros. It sells nearly 10 billion cans of the drink a year.Verstappen, who two weeks ago won his second consecutive world drivers’ title at the wheel of a Red Bull car, said he was determined to deliver a strong performance in Sunday’s United States Grand Prix as a tribute to Mateschitz.“It’s been hard news for everyone, for Red Bull and for the sport and for me in general, in my career and in my life,” the Dutchman said.“It is a very tough day.

We missed out in qualifying by a little bit, but there is a race tomorrow and we’ll try to do it for him... we are going to make him proud.”Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen said Mateschitz had led a “simply breathtaking life.”“Dietrich Mateschitz built up a world-famous and successful company, and we have lost a great supporter of top-class sport and extreme sports,” the president tweeted.Apart from its substantial investment in the F1 team, Red Bull bought