RB F1 CEO Peter Bayer has revealed that parent company Red Bull has considered reducing its workforce to just one Formula 1 team ahead of the 2024 season.
The Faenza-operated team, known by the full name Visa Cash App RB F1, is the product of an off-season name change for Red Bull’s “sister” team.
Based on Minardi at its birth, RB F1 follows Toro Rosso from 2006 to 2019 and AlphaTauri from 2020 to 2023.
Before Red Bull ended up keeping RB F1 thanks to new commercial partners, like Hugo and Visa, the plan was to sell the team.
“Red Bull set out a strategy, because I think it was no secret that they were at least discussing whether we should keep both teams actually, or whether we should focus on just one team, then manage our F1 operations through Red Bull Racing,” Bayer told Motorsport Week.
“But very quickly they came to the conclusion that ‘no, we want to keep both teams’, there are a lot of positives.”
Team principal Laurent Mekies added that Red Bull “was certainly looking for the best possible way to utilize a second F1 team.”
“They felt they needed a fresh start in terms of team positioning, both from a pure identity standpoint and a competitiveness standpoint.”
“What they told us was that ‘we have a lot of great ideas about what we want to do with this second team, but the first thing is that finishing 8th, 9th or last in the championship doesn’t work’ , because whatever our message is, if we are at the back of the grid, we will have difficulty getting that message across to complement anything we are not already doing with the Red Bull team winning every race.”
“The second thing they told us is that there are very, very clear rules and to consider both teams as belonging to one entity. Yes, you are competing against each other , but at least where the rules allow it, we can see all the sources of collaboration, whether it makes sense to do everything the rules allow us to do together, which was not always the case before. “
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