It looks like this could be the last season AlphaTauri appears on the Formula 1 grid.
AlphaTauri – Red Bull’s junior/sister team – has been in the news a lot lately. Mostly due to Red Bull’s dissatisfaction with rookie driver Nyck de Vries’ performance.
Rumors abound that the team has a laundry list of potential drivers to work with first driver Yuki Tsunoda. It is believed that they include stable Red Bull drivers Liam Lawson and Ayumu Iwasa or Mercedes reserve driver Mick Schumacher. Red Bull reserve driver Daniel Ricciardo is also in the conversation.
However, one of the drivers may not be the only thing that will change next season; It looks like the whole team name is on the cutting block.
Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko spoke about it in a recent interview.
“AlphaTauri will have two new leaders in Laurent Mekies and Peter Baer (outgoing FIA General Secretary) from 2024,” Marko told the Austrian newspaper. Small newspaperin Autosport.
“There will be new sponsors as well as a new name. The direction is clear: based on Red Bull Racing, as far as the regulations allow. Do-it-yourself construction is the wrong way.”
Big changes in the sister team
Last year, Red Bull co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz died, and according to Autosport, this led to a new leadership of the company. Moves were already underway with longtime team boss Franz Tost on his way in favor of Ferrari’s race director Laurent Mikis to take his place on the podium.
While Red Bull has announced plans to keep the team, they will move their operations from Faenza, Italy to the UK. This will allow for more cooperation with the core Red Bull team.
As Marko also touched on, it appears that Red Bull wants to make the team more competitive by using the resources of the big team as much as possible.
Just look at their current cars. The AT04 and RB19 are fundamentally different cars in terms of looks and design, although they do share some common elements. However, the former languishes in the back of the field, while the latter is virtually unstoppable.
Turning the team towards taking more cues from Red Bull is likely to be a good call.
So, with new staff, a new design philosophy, and perhaps a new driver, a new name makes sense, and fans have a name they’ll want to see return…
Fans want to see the AlphaTauri Morph back at Toro Rosso
Between switching to the current AlphaTauri name in 2020, Red Bull’s junior team was known as Toro Rosso.
Yes, that is the Italian word for “Red Bull”.
Red Bull bought Italian team Minardi and renamed it Toro Rosso ahead of the 2006 season.
Usually the team is used as a rookie team allowing the younger drivers on the team a chance in Formula 1. However, this does not mean that the team has not had some success under the Toro Rosso banner. The team took its first victory at the Italian Grand Prix of 2008 thanks to Sebastian Vettel. Max Verstappen, Daniel Ricciardo, Carlos Sainz, Alex Albon and Pierre Gasly are just a few of the names that have captained the team.
So there’s a great history there, but for a lot of fans, the things that make them want to see the Toro Rosso name back on the grid are.
I could see Torro Rosso back with some Ford logos in there. Not fully Ford because it’s too early. I will miss Alpha Tauri. Always love their liver. But Toro Rosso has always looked better pic.twitter.com/rbyXaLxwwm
– Michael Richards (@MichaelHleyden) June 28, 2023
There is a lot of excitement around a possible return to Toro Rosso, but…
If I had to put a dime on whether or not Red Bull brings back the Toro Rosso name, I’d throw my name on the “don’t happen” side of things.
This appears to be a fresh start, and Italian names such as Scuderia Toro Rosso and Scuderia AlphaTauri have paid tribute to the team’s Italian roots.
However, if it’s a fresh start, I wouldn’t be surprised to see an entirely new name that wasn’t at all on the side of those cars in 2024.
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