The value of a name

While it’s important to acknowledge F1’s commercial imperatives, when the official title of a team stirs unprecedented ire, something has surely gone awry

lphatauri’s rebranding as Visa Cash App RB and the outcry that followed were as predictable as the new name was underwhelming. One element of this was the various headlines decrying it as the worst Formula 1 team name ever, including in The Guardian newspaper.

More than ever in F1, teams are used as branding exercises.

It’s not new – think Benetton in the 1990s. But the fashion house at least owned the team that is now Alpine, unlike Alfa Romeo with Sauber in the last five years of that ‘branding exercise’.

Those two utterly uninspiring words sum up the problem around the team-name storms that have become the second off-track saga of the nascent 2024 season. These follow Guenther Steiner’s departure from Haas and the journey that team is now on. The thinking behind them is also simply off-putting to many F1 fans.

The VCARB rebrand makes sense from a commercial point of view for its Red Bull parent operation. Leaving snarky Minardi arguments aside, there was no point even returning to Scuderia Toro Rosso for a team that in many ways is being moved closer to the Uk-based divisions of Red Bull’s main squad. Red Bull Gmbh is doing all this, ultimately, because it wants a better return on investment than the ninth and eighth places Alphatauri achieved in the first two years of the new ground-effect era.

Here we’ve hit on another dull business phrase, especially

Aas Minardi becoming Toro Rosso was then part of Dietrich Mateschitz’s passion project and originally dedicated to developing young driver talent. Really, this is an element for which Red Bull doesn’t get enough credit. But with its junior supply pipeline seemingly no longer functioning as it used to – evidenced by Liam Lawson being off the grid, despite his stellar performances in place of the injured Daniel Ricciardo last year – what is VCARB about now? The name alone, surely, says it outright: cash.

The past few weeks have contained plenty of off-putting developments to many F1 fans. Taking a broadside swipe: who cares about Haas now that Steiner is gone? Regardless of his achievements, or lack of them, his approach to team principalling provided considerable entertainment in F1’s off-track churn. Now, because of the massively lengthy lead times required to turn an F1 results ship around, the debate swings towards Haas adding less to F1 with its X factor gone. It’s the reverse of the argument for keeping Andretti (a name steeped in motorsport lore, after all) out of the championship – that a new squad must add value to mitigate the financial hit to the other teams of an 11th joining. It was a point Steiner himself made time and again last year.

The Madrid street track joining the calendar in 2026 makes it yet another identikit circuit (TV helicopter shots aside) coming to the already packed schedule. Yes, such events bring the action to cities where it’s easier for fans to attend, then enjoy other delights in surrounding metropolises. And there’s also an environmental argument that new purpose-built tracks should no longer be considered given the resources they require to build and the added travel needed to attend. But F1’s street track swell makes so many races look too similar given the considerable safety features regulated in their construction. New Monaco events these are not. The identity problem of individual races is something Formula E struggled to manage in its early years. And that championship is now making a move to visit more purpose-built facilities.

But these things are happening because the short-term drive for cash is so important. That’s not new and ultimately it’s a fact of life. But in these instances, it comes with a risk of alienating long-term motorsport fans. Some are already very disillusioned and, because there’s no guarantee of another Drive to Survive or pandemic escape boom coming, that is a problem in the longer term.

F1 has changed. It has always been about change. But too much else of what attracts people to it seems to be in the process of being forgotten. Inspiration has a massive value too.

The Alfa point is pertinent. Its official FIA entry list team title is Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber, with that last word being so historic. Before Audi with its many motorsport accolades arrives, that venerable name is something fans could galvanise themselves around, although admittedly in smaller quantities than with a titlewinning team. But we can predict here that this won’t happen with the new name. As soon as the season gets rolling, then whatever TV term takes off – something that’s actually not so simple in this case, given gambling advertising restrictions in many markets, hence the requirement for the whole Kick thing – that’ll be how Sauber is known. The floodgates were opened by the Alfa acceptance.

Again, hard business logic will be behind it. For however much sanctimonious columnists wail, media outlets in an ever more strangulated market can’t afford to give clicks away in the Seo-dominated online world. This mirrors the ruthlessness of F1 itself, where technological, financial and even political battles all add to the championship’s intrigue. But it’s a people passion at its heart. That cannot be forgotten, especially if those fans relied on to build the boom are indeed more needed in the coming years.

“The past few weeks have contained plenty of off-putting developments to many F1 fans”