AlphaTauri will remain at Red Bull, a heritage of the company that produces drinks, at least in the near future, but will undergo another very important name change: from this year, as has been known for several weeks despite the lack of official , it will be called Visa Cash App Racing Bulls Formula One Team.
For the team based in Faenza, since it has been under the control of Red Bull, it is the third name change in 17 years. From 2006 to 2019 he raced under the name Scuderia Toro Rosso, before moving on to the clothing brand still controlled by the Austrian giant producer of energy drinks. In 2024 here is the third name, Racing Bulls. A precise reference to the reference team, Red Bull Racing, which is back in vogue after the period in which Toro Rosso represented the link with Milton Keynes through its name.
“It's fantastic to unveil the new identity and welcome new partners as we embark on the next phase of the Formula 1 team's history,” said Peter Bayer, managing director of the new Visa Cash App RB team. “Faenza is entering a new era of racing, staying true to our roots as a hotbed of talent, but now with an even greater focus on competing for F1's biggest prizes. We have a bold vision for the team led by me and by team principal, Laurent Mekies, and to have future-focused partners like Visa and Cash App alongside us on this journey is extremely exciting.”
“The birth of Visa Cash App RB is an extremely significant moment,” said Oliver Hughes, Chief Marketing Officer at Red Bull Technology. “The new identity is not a simple name change, but the beginning of an exciting new journey that will take the team to new levels of competitiveness, as demonstrated by the presence of one of the most iconic brands in the world as the team's title partner. But Like the team, Visa is firmly focused on the future, expanding from its position as a world leader in its core business to become a global pioneer in the development of digital financial services for everyone, everywhere. In line with this commitment to the finance of the future, Cash App joins the team as a key partner and one of the most downloaded financial applications. The team's new identity as Visa Cash App RB projects a future where the team projects to the front of the grid every weekend.”
This is both a technical and commercial choice by Oliver Mintzlaff and Peter Bayer, respectively head of sports programs for the Red Bull Group and CEO of Racing Bulls. Despite global exposure thanks to the Formula 1 platform, the AlphaTauri brand has not achieved the desired results. Indeed, it disappointed the Austrian group that created it quite a bit. Sales – despite the global showcase guaranteed by the world champion Circus – were far from expectations.
AlphaTauri is thus supplanted after 4 years. From the presentation with great fanfare in 2020, complete with a fashion show to enhance the fashion brand created by Red Bull, to the possible complete disappearance of the same.
The objective of Mintzlaff – and of the managing director of the Faenza team, Peter Bayer – is to make Racing Bulls independent from an economic point of view, because in recent years first Toro Rosso and then AlphaTauri have represented an item of expenditure for the Austrian group. The choice not to sell the team – there is talk of an offer close to a billion dollars rejected several months ago – will make the team's economic independence necessary. A significant achievement, which will have to go hand in hand with the necessary one linked to growth in performance and results on the track.
It is no coincidence that the arrivals of the two new title sponsors, Visa and Cash App, derive directly from the sponsorship collection made by Red Bull Racing marketing and forwarded to the Racing Bulls offshoot team. This synergy, with excess sponsors passed to the satellite team, further cements the relationship between the team managed by Christian Horner and that of Laurent Mekies.
Speaking of title sponsors, Racing Bulls will show off Cash App, which deals with mobile payment services available in the US and UK markets. It is nothing more than a service that allows users to transfer money to each other using a smartphone app. Visa, on the other hand, is a joint venture based in Foster City, California, made up of thousands of financial institutions that issue Visa-branded products, primarily credit and debit cards.
“We are excited to embark on this journey with Visa and Red Bull,” said Catherine Ferdon, Head of Brand at Cash App. “The RB team at Visa Cash App and Cash App are dedicated to connecting people and communities, and there is “is the sport's greatest unifier. As Formula One continues to grow in the United States, this sponsorship allows us to deepen our relationship with Formula One fans and strengthen Cash App's commitment to supporting and growing the culture of F1 support in the United States, while offering more value to our customers. We have a history of nurturing emerging talent and look forward to sponsoring a team known for developing incredible up-and-coming drivers.”
Visa's role is also interesting not only in Racing Bulls, but also in Red Bull. The global sponsor will be visible both on the Faenza single-seaters and on the RB20s of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez. A global agreement, the one between the Californian giant and the Austrian one, which suggests how much a Formula 1 team attracts when it wins titles and does so by opening a dynasty.
“This is an innovative partnership and a great opportunity for the Visa brand to engage one of the fastest-growing sports communities on the planet,” said Frank Cooper III, Visa Chief Marketing Officer. “This alliance resonates strongly with Visa’s vision of inspiring individuals to ‘make it,’ by striving to take small steps to improve every day, during every race or event.”
As we said, the one between Red Bull Racing and Racing Bulls is a commercial bond, of course, but also a much stronger technical bond than it was until yesterday. Racing Bulls will be able to draw heavily from the reservoir of components created by Red Bull and this has already warned several prominent personalities, including Zak Brown, who has expressed all his doubts about this operation as early as the end of 2023.
It is not far-fetched to think of the first Racing Bulls single-seater as a sort of traveling laboratory, capable of testing solutions that could be good for the Faenza team, but above all for the Milton Keynes team. A smart operation, which would also allow you to better manage resources and keep the spending threshold imposed by the budget cap at bay.
Precisely for these reasons, it will be difficult to see Racing Bulls included in the fight for fourth place in the Constructors' World Championship in the years to come. It will be convenient for Red Bull to keep it in a good position, but not higher than fifth place in the standings to avoid arousing further suspicions about the link between the structures of the two teams. In short, a Faenza bull called to go faster than in 2023, but, somehow, with the handbrake always slightly on.
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