Big change in F1! Red Bull’s second team will undergo a major change, AlphaTauri will disappear from the grid. Will it affect the drivers?

Red Bull’s second team will disappear from Formula 1 next year, or rather undergo a renaming and a major change. This was confirmed in the last few hours by the Austrian team’s advisor Helmut Marko. So what will happen to AlphaTauri?

Scuderia AlphaTauri will not be operating under this name in Formula 1 from next year. The Italian team from Faenza was officially created in 2020, when the now former Torro Rosso team was renamed and rebranded.

For those who follow Formula One more peripherally, this is Red Bull’s second, or rather “junior” team. Although officially, AlphaTauri wanted to get rid of that label.

But the Austrian team seems to have understood that letting the other team produce its own parts and construction is not an effective solution. AlphaTauri is currently at the bottom of the grid in terms of performance.

In any case, its rebranding was seen as a way to raise awareness of Red Bull’s AlphaTauri fashion division. In fact, the future of AlphaTauri was already debated earlier this year, so now it is finally clear.

Long-time team boss Franz Tost will leave his post at the end of this season, to be replaced by respected Ferrari director Laurent Mekies. Red Bull’s new CEO Oliver Mintzlaff also wanted to set a new direction, so AlphaTauri will face a restructuring.

This information was confirmed by current Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko in an interview with Austria’s Kleine Zeitung. “AlphaTauri will have two new leaders from 2024. Laurent Mekies and Peter Bayer (outgoing FIA Secretary General),” Marko said.

Big news

Marko confirmed that the team will be renamed and new sponsors will be added. Red Bull’s consultant says the “do-it-yourself” approach is not the right direction.

Also new is that the main base is expected to move to the UK. This will allow closer collaboration with the current constructors’ champion, which is based in Milton Keynes.

“The decision has been made. AlphaTauri will remain fully owned by Red Bull and will continue to be run as a junior team. The collaboration with Red Bull Racing will be closer, also in terms of cost reduction and synergies,” Marko said clearly.

In short, the future AlphaTauri will source as many parts as possible from Red Bull. The team plans to go with a completely different strategy, also because AlphaTauri as a clothing brand is quite loss-making and the results over the last year and a half are not what they should be.

What about the pilots?

As for the driver line-up for next year, Marko is currently happy with team leader Júki Cunoda. The Japanese pilot has done a great job, he says, and he intends to count on him in the future.

However, there has been a lot of speculation about the second seat in AlphaTauri lately. Nyck De Vries is simply not giving good results. Moreover, Marko himself has confirmed that Red Bull is not satisfied with his performance so far.

F1, Kleine Zeitung, Twitter