Components 1 has two new workforce names this season, which observe a pattern within the sport to deal with advertising and marketing: Visa Money App RB Components One Workforce and Stake F1 Workforce Kick Sauber.
Sauber Motorsport has been racing since 1993 beneath varied names, most lately as Alfa Romeo. For this season and subsequent it would take the Stake title, with Audi taking up in 2026.
“Earlier than Audi’s arrival, we felt it was essential to current ourselves with this new id and to have a industrial partnership in place,” stated Alessandro Alunni Bravi, the Stake workforce consultant. “The Sauber Group has been in Components 1 for 32 years, however this doesn’t imply we now have forgotten what Sauber is. It signifies that for the subsequent two seasons we wished to current ourselves as one thing new, contemporary, totally different to assist us entice a brand new viewers.”
AlphaTauri, which entered Components 1 in 2006 as Toro Rosso, is getting the Visa Money App title.
“The top of sponsorship at Visa, Andrea Fairchild, stated that it’s a little bit of a mouthful,” Peter Bayer, the workforce’s chief govt, stated. “The truth is that we stated from the outset final yr that we’d transfer nearer to the Purple Bull household.”
The RB stands for Racing Bulls, a reference to the airplane assortment, often called Flying Bulls, that belonged to the workforce’s founder, Dietrich Mateschitz.
“It suits effectively,” Bayer stated. “However then we had an incredible drawback as a result of we had Visa, one of many greatest manufacturers on this planet, and Money App, one of the vital spectacular manufacturers within the monetary world, particularly within the U.S., each desirous to companion with us.
“We had been like, ‘Properly, we can be Visa Money App RB Components One Workforce.’ I don’t hear lots of people calling Aston Martin, Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Components 1 workforce, and I don’t hear folks speaking about MoneyGram Haas Components 1 workforce, so we simply need to be life like and deal with the content material, and that could be a actually stunning and quick automotive.”
Drake, a Canadian rap artist, did the voice-over on the social media video asserting the Sauber title change.
For 20 of the record-breaking 24 Grands Prix this yr, it is going to be often called Stake F1 Workforce. For the opposite 4, in Australia, Spain, Belgium and Qatar, it would revert to Kick Sauber.
The change is to adjust to the legal guidelines on playing promoting in these 4 nations as a result of Stake is a web-based cryptocurrency on line casino. Its house owners are additionally liable for Kick, a livestreaming platform.
“We can be absolutely compliant with all of the native relevant legal guidelines the place Stake is permitted,” Alunni Bravi stated. “So the place playing promoting is prohibited, we’ll use a distinct title.
“Our automotive launch was streamed stay on Kick.com, our chassis title is Kick Sauber, so the place we is not going to be racing as Stake, we’ll use the second workforce title.”
The names of each groups have been criticized, with some followers taking to social media. “Stake F1 Workforce Kick Sauber could be the worst title for a workforce in F1 historical past,” a fan wrote on X, previously often called Twitter.
“If you strive one thing new, and when you may have a workforce title that’s totally different from different workforce names, it’s at all times simple to be vital,” Alunni Bravi stated. “After all, there was criticism from these near the Sauber title, and possibly they anticipated one thing totally different.
“Possibly we went too excessive, however we wished to do one thing new and enticing for our fan base. When Drake introduced our title, we had 22 million impressions, a quantity we by no means achieved with a single publish on our social media platforms. It was big.”
For Bayer, touchdown Visa was as massive a coup. “You see the expansion price of F1 in the US, a rustic that could be a big marketplace for sports activities advertising and marketing, and Visa is a tremendous model,” he stated.
“They do Tremendous Bowl, Olympic Video games, FIFA World Cup and now a Components 1 workforce, which is an honor for us and an enormous alternative. They’ll carry so many contemporary concepts.”
Kendrick Lamar, the American rapper, carried out on the workforce’s introduction in Las Vegas earlier this month. “We’re mixing sport with leisure, bringing in new followers, activating new fan teams with a brand new manner of speaking,” Bayer stated. “It’s a tremendous alternative for Components 1.”
