Jan.22 (GMM) Two Formula 1 teams are heading into the 2024 season with completely different official names.
Red Bull is yet to confirm the news, but website and Instagram domain leaks suggest that Alpha Tauri’s official new name will be Visa Cash App Racing Bulls.
Registration of visacashapprb.com and racingbulls.com have both been traced back to Red Bull and Faenza based Alpha Tauri, while reports late last week suggested the team’s Instagram handle will be ‘visacashapprb’.
Cash App was already a minor Red Bull Racing sponsor.
Meanwhile, with Alfa Romeo now departed F1, the new official name for the Swiss-based Sauber team this season will be Stake F1 – in deference to Australian online casino sponsor Stake.
“The Stake team (pronounced Sauber) will begin the car launches on February 5,” Roger Benoit, a highly-respected Swiss journalist, wrote in Blick.
“It will happen in London, to circumvent the advertising ban for gambling in Switzerland,” he added.
Stake will be a short-term official name for Sauber, with Audi taking over for 2026.
One driver linked with a future drive at Audi is Carlos Sainz, who was at the finish line at the weekend as his famous father won the Dakar rally for the fourth time.
Sainz snr, 61, drives an electric Audi with Red Bull sponsorship – although his son greeted his father donning a white Ferrari-branded jumper.
“Is it true or not that Audi, via his legendary father, has offered Sainz the steering wheel of the former Sauber team from 2026?” wonders Leo Turrini, a well-known Italian journalist, in Quotidiano Nazionale.
“Why has Carlos, like (Charles) Leclerc, still not signed the renewal with Ferrari? He will sign, they assure me. But when?”
Sainz jr, 29, told the Spanish newspaper AS that his wish for the 2024 season – his last contracted year in red for now – is a “better racing car”.
“It has been said that the 2023 car suited me well – that I liked it,” he said. “Honestly, it gave me headaches. It was very difficult to understand.
“I didn’t enjoy driving it. I had to adapt to many things and try many different setups. I hope that in 2024 it will be more versatile and easier to drive and adjust. May we have a better racing car,” Sainz added.