During the 2023 season the future of the Red Bull sister team based in Italy was for a time uncertain. Rumours abounded that the energy drinks diner may sell the team due to its poor performance.
Yet ending the speculation Dr. Helmut Marko confirmed not only would the group be retaining the AlphTauri team but moving a significant amount of its operations to England over this winter. Further, the team would in future rely more heavily on Red Bull buying components allowed by the FIA rather than creating their own.
Big changes coming at AT
Marko was keen to emphasis at the time the team needed to do better and was no longer just a breeding ground for Red Bull young driver talent. Soon after Nyck de Vries was sacked and Daniel Ricciardo given the race seat, a move which confirms the Red Bull change strategy in terms of driver recruitment for AlphaTauri.
For years the Red Bull junior team was simply called Toro Rosso – Italian for Red Bull, but changed its name to a Styrian based clothing brand – AlphaTauri – four years ago.
Rumours are cash is tight for the clothes business and this is why the team will be changing its name for 2024 along with new sponsors.
FIA regulations state that competitors for the next F1 season must register with the governing body by 12th December and duly Red Bull entered their junior team. However, the name retained a nod to the AlphaTauri brand this winter with the registered competitor listed as “Scuderia Alpha Tauri RB”.
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New American title sponsor
The FIA though allow name changes before the start of the season due to the ever changing nature of sponsorship deals which the teams rely heavily on to support their racing activities. So no one expected the name listed in December to remain the same through to the start of the 2024 season.
Red Bull’s Dr. Marko confirmed the change would occur telling Kleine Zeitung, “There will be new sponsors and also a new name.” This was confirmed by CEO Peter Bayer who openly admitted, ”We will change the company name, we will change identity, logo, everything, a complete relaunch, complete rebrand.”
Much was made before Christmas of the fact Red Bull GmbH have filed two applications in Austria for both the Racing Bulls word mark and a logo mark with the famous bull. Whilst nothing has been officially confirmed, Peter Bayer has said that plans have now been finalised to incorporate the team’s new American sponsors into the new branding and the full official team name, and it is anticipated that the team livery will also change to be more consistent with the Red Bull brand.
Fans of the team have been on a detective hunt to uncover the new name and this has led to another discovery as Red Bull have been found to have registered the domain ‘VisaCashAppRB’. This followed the registration of the domain starting ‘RacingBulls’.
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VisaCashAppRB the new name
Since the takeover of F1 by American firm Liberty media sponsorship from US based companies has skyrocketed and the top ten deals are now believed to be in the region of $350m a year.
Cash strapped Haas revealed their new sponsor before the 2023 United States Grand Prix to be financial services business MoneyGram and so it would be no surprise in VISA now wished to join the F1 gravy train.
Concerns have been mooted over the new relationship being formed between Red Bull and their junior team with McLaren’s Zak Brown most prominent, questioning whether F1 should continue to allow two teams to be run by the same owner.
Brown reiterated his thoughts this week stating, “I am concerned about the Alpha Tauri-Red Bull alliance.”
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Brown questions Red Bull owning 2 teams
“So this A-B team and co-ownership, which is a whole other level of A-B team, is a big concern to us and the health and fairness of the sport,” Brown insisted.
“It’s pretty much not allowed in any other form of major sport, and I’d like to see us as an industry focus on that before it gets to a level of being where F1 once was, which was very out of balance.”
Yet Didi Mateschitz, founder of the Red Bull energy drinks empire did F1 a massive favour when he bought the ailing Ford owned Jaguar team along with there minnow that was Minardi. He rebranded them Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso at a time when the sport was suffering turbulent times with teams going bust and manufactures withdrawing from F1.
Brown argues that the regulations allowing A-B teams were written in a different era and now need to be changed.
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Relationship within regulations – for now
“They were written in a time without budget caps. They wanted to help small teams because the difference between a Mercedes and a minor team was unbridgeable. With a cost cap, this is no longer necessary. On the contrary,” he said.
“It offers much greater benefits to the A team and the B team than before. And F1 needs ten independent constructors.”
Of course Haas F1 whilst being an independent team sub-contract their chassis design to Dellara and buy as many parts as allowed from Ferrari. This appears to be the model Red Bull are set to sue moving forward with their hitherto independent junior team.
It’s not clear exactly what Brown objects to about the Red Bull sister team relationship which is constrained by the same rules as Ferrari and Haas with regards to intellectual property.
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AlphaTauri’s Singapore upgrade package was a significant overhaul of their 2023 that included a switch to parts of the Red Bull RB19’s rear suspension. It started the season using the RB18’s rear end, as using older Red Bull parts has been the team’s preference for several years.
Yet there was nothing improper done by Red Bull or AT given they followed the strict list of what parts teams can and cannot buy from one another. Further, the regulations outline strict requirements for preventing the transfer of data, designs, drawings, or any other intellectual property, the receipt of information, consultancy or any other kind of services from another competitor, or the sharing of any methodologies.
“Teams decide to spend their money in different ways,” said Nikolas Tombazis, the FIA’s F1 director “Sometimes teams carry out modifications to the floor which are more local, and therefore don’t involve throwing everything away.
“We haven’t seen anything in AlphaTauri that is concerning us.”
No illegal sharing of data
Tombazis admitted the FIA’s concerns extend beyond the kind of collaboration between Haas and Ferrari and the sister Red Bull teams and that the FIA does not allow a team to reverse engineer a solution copied from another team as was the case with the infamous ‘Pink Mercedes.’
Teams must demonstrate their applications are their own from conceptual drawings and documentation through to the full components eventually fitted to the car.
Christian Horner dismissed the notion that Alpha Tauri were acting illegally stating: “When you look at the car, there’s quite fundamental differences between that car and a Red Bull Racing car.
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“And arguably, there’s other cars on the grid that are far closer in concept than an AlphaTauri is [to Red Bull].
“You’ve only got to look at an Aston Martin or even a McLaren, if you look around the rear suspension of a McLaren it’s very close in concept to that of our own.”
As the new Concorde agreement draws ever closer this topic will heat up as teams like McLaren and Williams believe the list of ‘allowed’ shared parts should be restricted further and all 10 constructors should be in essence building their own cars.
But for now, the VisaCashAppRB team may be breathing down the neck of Alpine as they surge up the table with their new closer relationship with the mothership, Red Bull.
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Personally, I’m a bit sick of Zac Brown’s constant trolling. Pot calling the kettle black Zac. Anyone remember Spygate?
Just get on with the job Zac and do all you can to give your driver’s a car they can truly compete in. Stop your whining.
Agree with your sentiment about Zac but a little unfair to cast ‘Spygate’ on him.
Spygate happened in 2007 under Ron Dennis, Zac only joined McLaren 9 years later.
Zak if we are cheating and you catch us cheating don’t whine about it. Just build your drivers a better car. Clown
Zac always has been a whiner, he can’t beat them so he talks rubbish
Anyone can see that having a second team that you can swap drivers with is a huge advantage for Red Bull and I say that as a serious RB and Verstappen fan. It would improve the sport in the long run if all ten teams were completely independent.