F1 | Racing Bulls: New car will be revealed on February 8

Taking the last gasp of the first week of presentations to have all the spotlight on you is a strategy that could pay off, especially if it involves launching not only a new car, but a team and a concept completely different from the one we have learned to know until the end of 2023.

Racing Bulls, the phoenix born from the still fresh ashes of AlphaTauri, has announced the day on which it will present its new car, the first born with the new identity of the team which continues and will continue to be based in Faenza, in the factories which over the last 17 years belonged to Toro Rosso and AlphaTauri after the change of ownership of the team from Minardi to the Red Bull Group.

The new single-seater from the Italian-Austrian team will be unveiled on February 8 in Las Vegas, a city in Nevada, in the United States. It is on a Thursday, at the end of the first week of presentations, and will be preceded by Williams and Sauber on February 5th, followed by Alpine with its F1 and LMDh on the 7th. Last year, the team which was then known as AlphaTauri and directed by Franz Tost, made the presentation in New York, revealing only the livery (while the real car was only shown through renderings released online on the same day).

The presentation on 8 February will be the opportunity for Racing Bulls to also present the new management, with Laurent Mekies arriving from Ferrari to take the place of Franz Tost in the delicate role of team principal, but also to begin a path that will see Racing Bulls particularly accustomed to initiatives linked to the States.

The fixed point, however, will be represented by the drivers. Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda will still be the starters after having contested the last 2023 races together. For both, the 2024 season will be very important, because, although the goals are different, both could be in their last year with the team.

Daniel Ricciardo, if he were to confirm the good things he did in the races held last year, could rightfully return to the shortlist of candidates for the place in Red Bull Racing alongside the untouchable Max Verstappen.

Yuki Tsunoda, on the other hand, must continue to grow to try to carve out more space for himself in Formula 1. Racing Bulls, as we know, is a transition team for young Red Bull drivers. This is why the Japanese will not have space in Faenza forever. It is also true that excellent results could also include him in the race for the seat which will also be in the hands of Sergio Perez in 2024.

The first Racing Bulls will be seen in a few weeks, but we already know that it will be equipped with the suspensions that made the Red Bull RB19 great. The timing led the Faenza team to adopt the geometries used by the most successful single-seater ever in Formula 1 with its 21 victories out of 22 races.

“In 2024 we will use the suspension of the RB19. Red Bull is a very aggressive team in development and they release their components late, because they want to maximize the performance of their car”, had already declared at the end of last year Jonathan Eddolls, head of Racing Bulls' on-track engineering.

“It's kind of 'fit and forget' on our part, in a way, because we take their components, fit them to our car and develop them around that.”

That the synergy between Red Bull and Racing Bulls is more substantial than in the past is not news. For several months it was already clear how the former AlphaTauri would put aside the ambition of doing so much on its own to return to using many more components coming from Milton Keynes, so much so that it was already raising the first doubts in its opponents as demonstrated by Zak's statements Brown released before and during the holiday season.

In short, the 2024 Racing Bulls is destined to arouse curiosity, waiting to understand if this will result in fierce controversy as early as February 8th or if, instead, we will have to wait for the first responses from the track. In this regard, the new single-seater that will be born in Faenza will make its track debut at the Marco Simoncelli in Misano Adriatico on Monday 12 February, the same day on which Aston Martin will present the AMR24 of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll.