As confirmed recently on the official F1 website, Red Bull’s junior team, Torro Rosso look to be changing their name ahead of the 2020 season. Following their entry into the sport, following the buyout of Minardi in 2006, the team has always been known as Toro Rosso, Italian for ‘Red Bull’.
The new name change comes with the release of the Red Bull clothing line, Alpha Tauri, which is coincidentally what the team will be renamed as for the 2020 season, as confirmed by the provisional entry list released by the FIA.
Toro Rosso will remain linked with Red Bull
It is still possible that this name change may be reverted or altered upon the release of the finalised entry list, however that is looking unlikely. We don’t yet know if anything else will be changing for the team, we’ll have to wait and see if there is a new livery for the car until around February time, when we usually see the teams reveal their new cars.
The switch from Torro Rosso to Alpha Tauri comes in the wake of other well established teams returning to the grid with new names. Following the buyout from Lance Stroll, Force India was re-branded as ‘Racing Point’ and ahead of the 2019 F1 season it was announced that Sauber would be officially known as ‘Alfa Romeo’.
While it will be difficult to get out of the habit of referring to the team as ‘Toro Rosso’, I quite like the name Alpha Tauri. While it is still tied in to the Red Bull brand (god forbid they ever own a sporting team and not plaster their brand all over it), it’s a far more subtle link. While they will still be Red Bull’s junior team, it also makes them sound slightly less junior, as they aren’t named directly after the senior outfit.
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