Van der Garde: “An Italian team shouldn't be called Visa Cash RB” | FP

The new name

Having closed AlphaTauri's parenthesis as title sponsor of the former Minardi, a team that was taken over by Red Bull and which after the change of ownership participated in the first GP in its history with the name of Toro Rosso in 2006, the Faenza company has made official the new team name. Already in recent weeks there have been continuous rumors and indiscretions about a possible change of name to Visa Cash App RBand so it was.

The criticisms

From the next championship, Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda will therefore be the drivers of this team, the second to change its name in 2024 after Sauber, renamed from Alfa Romeo to Stake F1. A few minutes after the announcement, numerous controversies relating to this decision exploded on the web and on social media, with many negative comments from users and with the addition of ironic photomontages.

Van der Garde against

A rather harsh opinion also came from the former Formula 1 driver Giedo van der Gardewho published several tweets explaining his point of view on the issue: “I know I just retired, and so I don't want to make it seem like that 'everything was much better in the past', but in my opinion Visa Cash App RB it's not an appropriate name for a Formula 1 team“, he wrote on X.

“We are getting used to the commercialization of F1, as it should be, so for the commercial opportunities I agree, but this seems to a name that a team based in Italy should not have. Anyway, maybe they'll prove me wrong, but I don't think that in the future we will talk about that fantastic team called Visa Cash App RB…”