The foundations of the RB project
Visa Cash App Racing Bullsor more simply Racing Bullsis a team undergoing a major transformation. What for many years was the Toro Rosso team, born on the foundations of Minardi in Faenza, with the main objective of being the Junior Team for technicians and drivers of the older sister Red Bull, was then renamed Alpha Tauri for a few years until finding its new name. However, this is not just a simple name change in favour of sponsors but an expansion of the sporting, commercial and marketing aims of the “minor” Red Bull team, understood as an energy drink company, which, let’s not forget, has built an empire on commercial communication. After many years of presence and success, the Red Bull Formula 1 team has stopped being the young and unconventional team it had worn at the beginning of its journey and the ownership has considered reviewing the marketing strategy by abandoning the Alpha Tauri project.
To illustrate the details of the project and the implications of the new communication strategy were: Laurent Mekies, Team Principal of the team and Peter Bayer, CEO of Racing Bullswho met the Italian media in the Monza paddock for a long chat that allowed them to clarify many curiosities about this new team and its genesis.
Mekies: “The Racing Bulls project for us started eight months ago, we were given the objective of becoming “top of the midfield” or the first of the central group. The top management of Red Bull told us “We have two F1 teams. One is fighting for the title but we have many other messages that we want to communicate such as a new team, Racing Bulls, but the messages don’t work if you are eighth or ninth or tenth”. So we did an analysis of the situation and it was clear that if we wanted to do better than eighth place, it meant that we had to beat one or two teams that have been here for 50 years to aim for fifth or sixth place. SoWe have taken a new approach by starting to create a new structure and attracting new talent or developing the ones we already have. This structure will design the 2025 car, which will be a development of the current project, and the new car compliant with the 2026 regulations..”
Restructuring and revolution
Such a project obviously implied a major review of the organizational structure of the team which was divided between various physical locations for historical reasons:
“Today we have about 500 people at the Faenza headquarters and we used the English wind tunnel in Bicester, which we acquired 15 years ago but which has long since been abandoned in favour of the Red Bull tunnel in Bedford. This is because in the meantime the regulation has reduced the time you can spend in the tunnel so you could start sharing the tunnels. We will close our aerodynamics facility in Bicester, which employs 110 people, and move them to a dedicated Racing Bulls facility in Milton Keynes. with the aim of increasing the number of people in this department. The Milton Keynes will also be home to the new wind tunnel of Red Bull which we will also be able to use.
The beauty of this project is that the level of freedom is very high. For example, last year Christian Horner he called us and said “guys, there is a building available near us to build the new Racing Bulls headquarters, what do you think?” We did a project with the architects in a couple of weeks to understand the costs, the implications, the time and then all we had to do at the end was send an email to Austria. Which we did and after 24 hours we had the ok to proceed. This is the level of freedom and speed that we have and it’s scary.”
The French Team Principal, who as many know had a long service in Ferrari As Sporting Director, he also wanted to illustrate to us the absolutely original mentality with which the new members of the team are called to work.
“We are the only team to have two offices for the chassis part. Historically it has been a weakness but we want to try again and turn it into an advantage. We are very active on the technicians market and we have hired 10-12 people in important roles from all the top teams. However what we have imposed on ourselves is that we are not here to try to repeat what we have seen in Ferrari, in Red Bull, in Mercedes or in others. We are prohibiting ourselves. We are here to put together a group of people to decide what is the best way to work tomorrow. We must resist the temptation to want to reproduce what everyone has seen in Ferrari or Mercedes. That is our philosophy.”
In search of the new Verstappen
The function of Junior Team for the Red Bull Academy drivers remains one of the reasons for the team’s existence. After all, with the new “group” of talented drivers who race successfully with the Red Bull colours in the minor formulas, Come Hadjar and Lindblad just to name a few, Red Bull has a real need to have F1 steering wheels available to grow the future replacements for Verstappen and Perez. It was interesting to hear from Mekies how the approach to the selection and growth of young pilots is today very different compared to the “Spartan” methods of the Helmut Marko method.
“One of the fundamental objectives of the project is and remains to develop the drivers of the Red Bull youth system in which they invest a lot.. And in this sense it is extraordinary to see the step forward that Yuki has made this year. The reflection that we often make with Red Bull is that being competitive on every track with two young drivers in a team is very difficult so we will continue as we do now, placing an experienced driver alongside a younger one. We have a different approach to communication and business than Red Bull Racing. In terms of fan base, their supporters are between 35 and 50 years old. We have a different fan base, not only because of the age group, which is lower and the youngest among all the teams on the grid, but also because of the gender split, which is 50%-50%. Our fans expect a more modern, younger approach to communication from us.
Yuki and Daniel help us a lot to build this identity. and for a project like this they are ideal. In addition, all the things we do are combined with music, art, culture. We try to diversify the communication approach. Of course, making a competitive car is the first priority and it is obviously important to bring results, but also because we are not fighting for the world championship, we have a bit of freedom. I don’t know if you saw, for example, the presentation of the 2024 car in Miami. We will intensify the collaboration with musicians, because we believe that sport and music are two universal languages. Everyone appreciates the adrenaline of a race and everyone appreciates the pace. Combining those two is part of our identity, it’s part of what Racing Bulls do.”
From Minardi to Racing Bulls
Returning to the name of the team, it must be admitted that Visa Cash App Racing Bulls is not a name that is immediate nor that takes root easily, especially coming from a history with roots as deep as that of the “Toro Rosso” team. Here it is Peter Bayer to illustrate the genesis of the name and possible developments:
“The name of the team is something important that we discussed a lot at the beginning of the year. We call ourselves Visa Cash App Racing Bulls because we want to give visibility to our title sponsors that we could change, even if we don’t want to. In terms of perception we clearly see that “Racing Bulls” is the name that is used the most because it fits perfectly with the Red Bull world where we also find the “Flying Bulls” (the aerobatic air fleet sponsored by Red Bull). We are still working very hard on it for the next few months but I won’t hide from you that it is difficult to build an identity. Even for me as a historical F1 fan, Minardi is still an important name then we moved on to Toro Rosso managed to establish itself because you had drivers like Vettel, Verstappen, Sainz over a long period obtaining important results.
Alpha Tauri lasted for a shorter period and with Covid in the middle changing society so it was difficult but we decided to take the challenge and start from scratch. We are confident and proud to be part of the Red Bull universe and Racing Bulls is something that should stay. We will always have our bull on the car.”
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