Racing Bulls

It has produced two Formula One world champions from a midfield budget. It is the only team in the sport's history to have its home circuit as the setting for both of its race victories, separated by twelve years and connected by something deeper than geography. It was born from a team that never won a single race in twenty years and was loved by the paddock more than almost any winner. It has been called Minardi, Toro Rosso, AlphaTauri, RB, and now Racing Bulls. The name changes more than almost any other team in the paddock. The purpose has never changed.

Team Profile at a Glance

Minardi-The Soul That Never Left

Giancarlo Minardi and Faenza

Giancarlo Minardi's grandfather owned a Fiat dealership in Faenza in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. His father built and raced his own cars locally. Giancarlo followed the same path, taking over management of a local racing team called Scuderia del Passatore in the early 1970s and progressing through Italian junior formulas with enough success to attract attention beyond the region. Enzo Ferrari approved the use of Ferrari test tracks in 1984 after noticing the quality of Minardi's driver evaluations. The team entered Formula One in 1985.

What followed was twenty years of survival on the margins of the sport. Between 1985 and 2005, Minardi made approximately 340 Grand Prix starts, scored 38 championship points, never achieved a podium finish, and reached fourth place on three occasions: Pierluigi Martini twice in 1991 and Christian Fittipaldi once in 1993. Martini also produced the team's only front-row start, qualifying second at the 1990 United States Grand Prix, and led a single lap during the 1989 Portuguese Grand Prix, the only lap any Minardi driver led in twenty years. The cars were considered well-designed for their budget. The shortfall came almost entirely from a lack of funds and engine power, not from the quality of the engineering.

The team was universally regarded as the most accessible, most friendly, and most un-corporate outfit in the paddock. A reputation they also apparently maintained at ground level: the Minardi garage was said to have the best espresso in Formula One. Their alumni list reads like a who's who of drivers who would become stars elsewhere: Fernando Alonso made his Formula One debut with Minardi in 2001 aged 19. Mark Webber scored his debut points with Minardi with a fifth place at the 2002 Australian Grand Prix. Giancarlo Fisichella drove for the team in 1996. Jarno Trulli in 1997. The team consistently found talent it could not afford to keep.

Paul Stoddart and the Forty-One Approaches

By 2000, the financial pressure had become untenable. Giancarlo Minardi sold the team to Australian businessman Paul Stoddart in 2001 to prevent it from folding altogether. Stoddart ran the team for five years, fighting publicly and persistently for better conditions for small teams in the paddock, mostly without success. He was the loudest voice for cost reduction in an era when costs were accelerating. His campaigns were rarely effective. The team remained at the back of the grid.

When it became clear the team could not continue under his ownership, Stoddart stated he would sell if the right buyer could be found. He claimed to have received 41 approaches. His criterion was precise: the buyer must be able to take the team further than he could, and must maintain it in its traditional base in Faenza. Red Bull GmbH, which had purchased Jaguar Racing at the end of 2004 and was operating it as Red Bull Racing, identified an opportunity to build a second team dedicated to developing the young drivers coming through its junior programme. The announcement of their acquisition of Minardi came on 10 September 2005.

Minardi fans worldwide launched an online petition to save the Minardi name and the team's twenty-year heritage in Formula One. Over 15,000 people signed. The petition was unsuccessful. The team was renamed Scuderia Toro Rosso for the 2006 season. Giancarlo Minardi re-acquired the rights to use the name in racing on 1 January 2006 and Paul Stoddart retains the Minardi name to this day.

Toro Rosso-Red Bull Builds a Pipeline

The Two Pillars

Dietrich Mateschitz appointed Franz Tost as team principal on 8 November 2005. Tost began on the same date he was appointed, arriving in Faenza to find 85 employees and a facility in transition. He was part of the same circle of Austrian motorsport figures who had grown close to Mateschitz before Red Bull's commercial success Niki Lauda, Helmut Marko, Gerhard Berger, and Tost were described by one source as "four musketeers from a joyful brotherhood proud of its Austrian roots."

Before Tost's first season began, Mateschitz struck a 50/50 joint-ownership deal with Berger, the former Formula One driver and three-time Grand Prix winner. Tost later described the founding brief Mateschitz gave him with characteristic precision: "Look, there are two pillars: you have to first of all use the synergies with Red Bull Technology, and second, to educate the young drivers, they must then come to Red Bull Racing, win races and, if possible, also championships." Tost recalled his response: "I thought to myself, 'OK, it's clear what you want, boss.'"

The first drivers in 2006 were Vitantonio Liuzzi and Scott Speed, running a modified version of the previous year's Red Bull chassis alongside Cosworth V10 engines. Liuzzi scored the team's first point with eighth place at the 2006 United States Grand Prix. Speed was dropped mid-season 2007 at the European Grand Prix and replaced by BMW Sauber development driver Sebastian Vettel.

Monza 2008-The Pit Wall, the Rain, and the Youngest Winner

By 2008, the team was running Ferrari V8 engines, the contract Red Bull Racing had vacated when it switched to Renault and the technical director was Giorgio Ascanelli, formerly Ayrton Senna's race engineer at McLaren. The combination of Ferrari power at Monza's low-downforce, high-speed circuit gave the team a specific aerodynamic advantage over its parent team, which ran on Renault power.

On the Friday before race weekend, Tost sat on the pit wall with Berger as rain fell on the circuit. Qualifying conditions were changeable, and most teams stayed in their garages. Tost told Berger: "I don't understand why all the others are not going out. It's wet and Monza under wet conditions is not so easy, the surface changes in different parts of the track, and behind Lesmo 1 and Lesmo 2 there is the forest and the water is not just going away." They knew their car and their driver were suited to those conditions.

On Saturday, Vettel qualified on pole position by 0.076 seconds, becoming the youngest Formula One polesitter in history. On Sunday, he led from the start in changeable conditions, extended his lead in the early laps when heavier rain threatened, managed his pitstops, and crossed the line 12.5 seconds ahead of Heikki Kovalainen's McLaren. At 21 years and 73 days, Sebastian Vettel was the youngest Grand Prix winner in Formula One history.

It was the first victory for a non-Ferrari Italian-based team since 1957. Many of the mechanics and engineers who celebrated in the Toro Rosso garage that Sunday had been there during the Minardi years. The win felt, to those people, like a vindication of everything the old team had represented and never been given the equipment to achieve. Vettel later said: "It was the best lap I ever did in Monza. Obviously it was not the fastest, but for sure it was the best one."

Berger's reaction to the win prompted a different response from Mateschitz. Success had given Berger ambitions for the team beyond its development mandate. Mateschitz made clear the team must not deviate from its primary purpose, preparing young drivers for Red Bull Racing. Berger disagreed with this framing and left. Red Bull bought back his 50% stake in November 2008.

A Decade of Promotion

Vettel was promoted to Red Bull Racing for 2009 and won four consecutive world championships. The pipeline was working. What followed across the next decade was one of the most consistent succession sequences in the sport: Daniel Ricciardo raced for Toro Rosso in 2012 and 2013 before going to Red Bull Racing; Daniil Kvyat in 2014 and 2015; Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen in 2015; Verstappen was promoted from Toro Rosso to Red Bull mid-season for the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix after four races in Faenza, went on to win five world championships; Pierre Gasly in 2017 and 2018 before going to Red Bull for 2019. In 2018, the team ended a period of engine supplier changes, it had used Ferrari, Renault, Ferrari again, then Renault again and agreed a works partnership with Honda, who had severed their ties with McLaren. Toro Rosso became Honda's flagship Formula One team, receiving free engines, official brand endorsements, and Japanese Honda engineers based at the Faenza facility.

Honda, AlphaTauri, and Monza Again

In late 2019, Scuderia Toro Rosso was renamed Scuderia AlphaTauri. The rebrand acknowledged the team's growing independence from Red Bull Racing while simultaneously promoting Red Bull's AlphaTauri fashion label. Franz Tost and Helmut Marko noted it also reflected a maturation: from junior team to genuine sister team.

The 2020 season began with Daniil Kvyat and Pierre Gasly as the driver pairing. Gasly had been demoted from Red Bull Racing back to Toro Rosso in the summer of 2019, mid-season after the Hungarian Grand Prix. He accepted the demotion professionally. The week after his demotion, he arrived at Spa-Francorchamps for the Belgian Grand Prix. On Saturday, watching the Formula 2 race from the paddock with his partner, he saw debris spread across Eau Rouge. He knew immediately it was serious. His closest childhood friend, Anthoine Hubert, had been killed in the accident. The two had grown up in the same French karting programme, been roommates, classmates, and constant rivals throughout their teenage years. Hubert had texted Gasly after his Red Bull demotion with two words: "Prove them wrong."

Eighteen hours after Hubert's death, Gasly had to drive in the Belgian Grand Prix. He did. He raced for the rest of 2019 and the whole of 2020 carrying that weight. The Sunday morning of the 2020 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, a week after returning to Spa for the first time since Hubert's death, Gasly sat in the kitchen of his apartment in Milan having coffee. He thought about Hubert. He wrote later: "I was like, f***, man, my life is pretty good. In that moment, I just felt grateful. Like, I had done it, we had done it. I was a Formula 1 driver. And in five hours I would get to race in the Italian Grand Prix."

He started the race in tenth place. Lewis Hamilton received a stop-go penalty for entering the pit lane while it was closed. Charles Leclerc crashed out at the restart. Gasly emerged at the front and held off Carlos Sainz over the final laps, winning by 0.415 seconds. It was the first French victory since Olivier Panis at the 1996 Monaco Grand Prix. It ended a sequence of 146 consecutive races without a non-Mercedes, Ferrari, or Red Bull winner. Gasly stood alone on the podium, no fans were present due to the pandemic. He wrote: "I thought of the boy in the orange helmet. I felt him there. I knew he was watching. His dreams were my dreams. My dreams were his dreams. And that moment was our moment."

Franz Tost ran the team through four more seasons after that win. He retired at the end of 2023, having been in charge for 18 years and over 350 Grands Prix. He was replaced by Laurent Mekies, arriving from Ferrari's racing director role, alongside Peter Bayer as CEO.

The Name Change Era and the 2025 Carousel

Visa Cash App RB

For the 2024 season, the team was rebranded from Scuderia AlphaTauri to Visa Cash App RB Formula One Team, shortened in usage to RB or VCARB. The name was widely criticised in the paddock and media. Edd Straw of The Race described it as "the worst team name in Formula 1 history" and "an embarrassment to Red Bull and Formula 1 as a whole," arguing that the name lacked "personality, identity and ambition" and existed primarily to force the title sponsors to be mentioned more frequently. The RB initialism also created regular confusion with Red Bull Racing.

The team began 2024 with Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda as drivers under Mekies' leadership. Ricciardo was dropped after the Singapore Grand Prix. Liam Lawson replaced him for the final races of the season.

2025: The Most Disruptive Twelve Months in the Team's History

For 2025, the team was renamed Racing Bulls, dropping the RB initialism. The driver situation then produced the most concentrated sequence of changes the team had experienced since its founding.

Lawson was promoted to Red Bull Racing for 2025 to replace the departing Sergio Perez. Isack Hadjar, a French-Algerian driver from the Red Bull junior programme and 2024 Formula 2 runner-up, was announced alongside Yuki Tsunoda at Racing Bulls. In the opening race in Australia, Hadjar crashed on the formation lap before the race had started. Two races into the season, Red Bull decided the arrangement with Lawson was not working and reversed it: Tsunoda went to Red Bull, Lawson returned to Racing Bulls alongside Hadjar.

Hadjar recovered from his formation lap crash in Melbourne to finish consistently in the points through the middle of the year. At the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, he produced the drive of his season: a third-place finish that was the team's maiden podium under the Racing Bulls name, and though nobody knew it at the time, the last podium the team would score with Honda power units. Lawson, meanwhile, rebuilt his confidence in a more forgiving car than the Red Bull he had briefly occupied, posting a career-best qualifying of third in Baku and finishing fifth in the race.

Alan Permane took over as team principal mid-season when Mekies moved to Red Bull Racing following Christian Horner's dismissal in July 2025. Permane had joined the team in 2024 after being released by Alpine, where he had spent over four decades as race engineer, chief race engineer, and sporting director. Racing Bulls finished sixth in the constructors' championship, their joint-best result alongside 2021, with a driveable, consistent car that Permane described as particularly strong on tyre management and drivability.

Hadjar was promoted to Red Bull Racing for 2026 to partner Max Verstappen. Tsunoda was retained by Red Bull as test and reserve driver.

2026-Ford Power and a New Chapter

For 2026, Racing Bulls will race with Red Bull Ford Powertrains, the first time a car carrying the DNA of the Faenza team has been powered by Ford since the Minardi days in 2004. The new power unit regulations represent the largest technical change in Formula One in over a decade, with the electrical motor contributing approximately half of total power output.

Liam Lawson remains for 2026 alongside Arvid Lindblad, an 18-year-old British driver with Swedish and Indian heritage who came through the Red Bull junior programme. Lindblad became the youngest race winner in Formula 2 history when he won a sprint race in Saudi Arabia aged 17 in 2025. He becomes the 20th driver from the Red Bull junior programme to make his Formula One debut with the Faenza team, a number that no other team in the sport can match. In pre-season testing, Lindblad completed 240 laps without significant incident, impressing in free practice outings at Silverstone and Mexico City the previous season where he had outpaced Tsunoda in the same car during his Mexico outing.

The UK operation has also relocated from Bicester to Milton Keynes, closer to the Red Bull Racing headquarters, consolidating the operational relationship between the two teams for the regulation reset.

Permane's assessment of the 2026 challenge is measured: "2026 will be a big challenge. There's a lot to learn and we need to do everything we can to be in the right place when the cars hit the track." The team that began with 85 staff and a two-pillar mandate arrives at the biggest regulation change in a generation with the same purpose it has always had to develop talent, score points, and occasionally, at Monza most of all, do something nobody expects.

Team Statistics

Total race wins: 2 both at Monza, separated by twelve years.

Red Bull Junior Programme drivers to reach F1 through this team: Vettel, Ricciardo, Kvyat, Sainz, Verstappen, Albon, Gasly, Hartley, Tsunoda, Lawson, Hadjar, Lindblad, 20 in total as of 2026.

World champions produced by the team: Sebastian Vettel (four titles), Max Verstappen (five titles).

Last updated March 2026