Red Bull chief Helmut Marko has led the call to rebrand and rename AlphaTauri as part of the team’s ongoing restructure under new Red Bull management.
In an extensive overhaul, long-serving AlphaTauri team boss Franz Tost will step aside at the end of this years’ campaign to be replaced by respected Ferrari racing director Laurent Mekies.
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The constructor has struggled with performance issues and inconsistency over the past couple of seasons and Red Bull are now aiming to correct their downward spiral by stepping in and providing them with more parts moving forward.
This would mark a significant change in their partnership and a potential return to the original dynamic between Red Bull and Toro Rosso, when the former worked closely with their sister team on engineering and mechanics.
AlphaTauri formerly ran under the Toro Rosso moniker between 2006 and 2019. Its rebrand was seen as a way to boost the awareness of Red Bull’s fashion division AlphaTauri.
But questions were raised internally by new Red Bull CEO Oliver Mintzlaff about the limited impact that the F1 operation has had in increasing brand exposure.
Currently, AlphaTauri operate independently, but their slide down the standings marks a stark contrast to the years they spent holding their own in the midfield.
They’ve now found themselves bottom of the constructors’ championship and Marko has been open about his displeasure and has since revealed changes will be made across the board.
New Driver?
While we will see a new name and new sponsors next year for AlphaTauri, all the specific details on other tweaks haven’t been confirmed, but there’s a good chance we’ll see new drivers, especially since Marko is non-committal on their current line-up of Yuki Tsunoda and Formula E Champion Nyck de Vries:
“Basically, Yuki is having a very good season with unfortunate results and penalties, but the performance is right,” he added.
“With Nyck de Vries, however, we are not satisfied, we are looking at that as well.”
In-steps Daniel Ricciardo…
After a year of serving as a test driver for Red Bull in a surprising homecoming, three days ago it was reported that Ricciardo was willing to re-join the team’s development operation at the AlphaTauri junior team a decade after graduating from the program.
What was an unusual, unprecedented move, Ricciardo’s move to AlphaTauri’s development could all make sense should the popular Australian be re-named on the Formula 1 starting grid 2024 – under the newly rebranded Red Bull team.
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