CEO Of VCARB Explains Reasons Behind His F1 Team's New Name

Friday, 26 January 2024 at 11:00

Peter Bayer, CEO of the VCARB (Visa Cash App RB), explained a few reasons behind his team's new name for his F1 team.

The team that we knew as AlphaTauri for the last four seasons of Formula 1 has recently officially announced its new name - Visa Cash App RB. It was suggested the team is internally being referred to as VCARB, so that is how we will call it as well.

Many F1 fans were quite confused as to why the team picked such a name. The CEO of the team, Peter Bayer, explained to Speedcafe:

"Well, it's manifold. First of all, there was a strategic decision from the owners to keep the team, to keep developing the team, but also, they have expectations."

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VCARB is a sister team of Red Bull Racing, and for the majority of its past, it has been known as Toro Rosso (which is Red Bull in Italian) or AlphaTauri (which is Red Bull's clothing brand).

"They want us to perform on the sporting side, but also to perform on the commercial side, more than we have done in the past when Toro Rosso was, I think, a 99 percent sort of Red Bull-branded car, given the bull and the colours, and AlphaTauri was 95 percent the clothing brand owned by Red Bull."

During its years as Toro Rosso or AlphaTauri, the team was known only as Red Bull's junior team. However, its ambitions have changed in recent years.

The Italy-based team decided it wanted to compete for better positions in the Championship rather than being just a junior team. That requires a change of identity.

"Now, moving forward, as I said, we have to deliver on different levels, and to achieve that, we also felt that we need a new identity, something that is unique to the team."

Many aspects of Formula One sport are controlled by money. Some teams like Haas struggle with a lack of sponsors and, therefore, can't put as much money into development as others.

This makes the American team less competitive. VCARB wants to fill the budget cap and still be a healthy, profitable team. In order to do that, the team needs sponsors, big sponsors. Bayer added: