How Racing Bulls has stepped out from the shadow of Red Bull

Racing Bulls has gone through a revolution of leadership, branding, and overall team image over the past two years, bidding farewell to the days of Toro Rosso and AlphaTauri.

The Faenza-based squad has a very different energy and vibe from a somewhat staid and dull couple of years when it raced bearing the name of Red Bull’s clothing brand AlphaTauri.

Peter Bayer: Racing Bulls has developed its own identity

Two years ago, Red Bull opted to completely refresh its second team, then known as AlphaTauri. It had been a lacklustre rebranding of its Toro Rosso team, an identity which had stood out for over 15 years as the inescapable Italian relative of the Red Bull Racing squad.

But AlphaTauri never quite seemed to resonate, with its restrained liveries epitomising a team that simply didn’t really seem to know what it stood for or what its targets were under the Red Bull umbrella.

All changed at the end of 2023, with Red Bull opting for a major change to coincide with the retirement of Franz Tost, the no-nonsense Austrian team boss who had overseen its efforts since arriving on the grid in 2006.

A new leadership structure was put in place, with Laurent Mekies placed in charge as team boss, and former FIA man Peter Bayer returning after a period of gardening leave from the governing body to take up the role of CEO for the squad.

While Mekies has recently moved on to succeed Christian Horner at Red Bull Racing, succeeded by Alan Permane, Bayer has overseen huge change over the past two years, helping to re-shape a very different commercial strategy that has created an entirely different image for a team that had become, on the face of it, stodgy and stiff. Old-fashioned, even.

None of that applies to Racing Bulls. While there was some confusion throughout 2024 as an unusual branding strategy led to a sponsor-led team name in Visa Cash App RB, the RB has since evolved to become ‘Racing Bulls‘.

Anyone who follows Racing Bulls on social media will see that the content put out on its channels is fresh and fun, poking fun at the latest viral memes with its staff and drivers – leaned into with gusto by Liam Lawson and Isack Hadjar – showcasing edgy fashion looks, and presenting its race and weekend content with originality and authenticity.

Stodgy and boring? Far from it, with the team’s social media output clearly designed to appeal to the ever-increasing Gen Z fandom, which the latest Motorsport Network fan survey revealed accounts for 27 per cent of respondents.

97 percent of the Gen Z fandom say they intend to still be following F1 in five years time, and an all-time high in female respondents – the average of whom is 30 years old – means appealing to this increasing market simply makes sense, and that’s something Racing Bulls is doing with aplomb.

According to information supplied to the teams in the F1 Team Perception report, Q1 2025 saw 47 percent of F1 fans describe Racing Bulls’ social media output as “excellent”, the highest of any of the current 10 teams; this figure marks a huge increase from 14 percent in the same quarter of Q1 in 2024.

Of course, marketing isn’t the be-all and end-all, and Racing Bulls has seen serious investment made across the team’s operations.

Perhaps the biggest change is the increased synergy between Red Bull Racing and Racing Bulls, maximising the permitted opportunities under the regulations, and this has seen Racing Bulls open up a new facility at the Technology Campus in Milton Keynes, moving out of an aging and increasingly defunct Bicester aero facility.

This Milton Keynes facility came online in early January and, just over six months later, I had the chance to sit down with Bayer during one of Red Bull’s home races, in Austria, to discuss how he has seen the evolution of Racing Bulls progress since the project was refreshed by the parent company at the end of 2023.

“I guess the most important step for us was, and that’s something that we feel and see, is the development of an identity,” Bayer said, sipping a coffee as we start our chat on the upper floor of the Red Bull Energy Station.

Outside, the Formula 2 Sprint race is underway, and Bayer and I are occasionally distracted by the on-track developments, as well as the engine noise, but, as usual with Bayer, his answers are considered and measured, offered with his full focus and usual friendliness.

“People understand who we are, Racing Bulls. People understand what we do. We’re an incubator for talent. Obviously, in this sport, it always helps when you have a good car.

“We’ve made a big step, and Laurent and the guys did an incredible job in restructuring the team.

“It took a bit of time for everybody to find their position, find their place, but you can feel now there is cohesion, and there is a real team spirit, people working together.

“I’d say on the operational side, that’s the biggest step forward. Of course, we are lucky, because we have been generously supported by the shareholders with the new facility in Milton Keynes. Every time that you speak to Alan [Permane], to Tim [Goss], to the guys, they like, ‘You know what? I love going to work.’

“It’s a beautiful facility that plays all the tricks; they have parking, they have a canteen, they have a gym… so it is a big step forward. So we have an identity, we have a functional operation.

“We work together as a team, and we found our niche by pushing very clearly the whole Gen Z approach, the young fanbase. Most of them are new to the sport, and I think they love the side of the team where we don’t take ourselves too seriously.

“We like to have a bit of fun. Our social media, we’ve just had the figures from Formula 1, 47 per cent of all Formula 1 fans say that our social media content is excellent, which is the best rating of any team.

“All of that has been streamlined. It’s very clear to the outside what we do, how we communicate, and how we see ourselves as a team.”

With Racing Bulls having planned a new livery, designed in collaboration with the artist Slawn, for the next round, at Silverstone, Bayer laughs at my attempts to get him to reveal what it might look like, eating a bite of canelloni as he jokes, “he can’t talk with his mouth full!”

It’s not the first time the Faenza-based squad rolled out a new look for its car in 2025, with the pink ‘Summer Edition’ car at Miami widely praised by fans as being a particularly striking design.

Red Bull’s willingness to use its sister team for such marketing exploits, Bayer explains, illustrates how Racing Bulls has found its identity.

“All of that together culminated in Miami, because that’s where Red Bull, as a family, also, for the first time ever, used us as a vehicle to transport the can, to tell the world that we are part of this family,” he said.

“‘This is the Summer Edition’, and it was a huge success. The social media campaign on the beverage side, on the team spirit, underlined everything that I just said before.”

Twenty years ago, it was Red Bull Racing that often showed up with some crazy but imaginative marketing ideas. Who can forget the RB1 being kitted out in a Star Wars livery at Monaco in 2005, and the pitcrew all dressed as Stormtroopers?

With Red Bull Racing evolving into something a little more corporate, with special liveries marketing for elements of its prestige – such as its Honda tributes – moreso than simply having some fun, is Racing Bulls of 2025 now encapsulating the energy its Milton Keynes-based stablemate brought to F1 20 years ago?

“[Two years ago], it was different. There was a different approach, and there was also less pressure to be commercially successful [as AlphaTauri],” Bayer said.

“There was less pressure to have a clear identity. Basically, this was a second team that was responsible for junior development, very much focusing on that sporting side.

“On top, they were carrying the AlphaTauri colours, but it was not driven by this hunger of having a clear identity, having a clear job within the Red Bull family.

“I wasn’t there 20 years ago when Red Bull was the rock star in the business. But, certainly, we’re trying to re-inject a bit of those original values. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Have fun in what you do. Work hard, party hard!

“It’s something we see with our drivers, Isaac and Liam, every crazy social media idea these people come up with, it’s not that they have to force them! You see them enjoying what they’re doing. So I don’t want to compare too much. We do what we do and we enjoy doing it.”

But is that image change the biggest delineation between what the team was two years ago, or is it simply the top layer of a much more root-and-branch revitalisation?

“It’s both. You know why? F1, ultimately, it’s a super serious business,” Bayer said.

“Here’s an example that has just popped into my head.

“When I worked in snowboarding, I had a meeting with the CEO of Vans Shoes, who is doing the Vans Triple Crown of surfing, Vans Triple Crown of snowboarding; it’s all about that hardcore youth street style.

“So you come to the headquarters in L.A., and the first floor of the office is a skate park. That’s the first thing you see. It’s a skate park with hardcore rock and roll music, kids doing skateboarding. You’re like, ‘Oh, this is Vans.’

“Come to the second floor, there’s a bunch of nice guys welcoming you, showing you around, and the shoes.

“Then you come to the third floor, there’s a bunch of guys in suits running a hardcore business, doing the numbers, doing everything.

“That’s what Formula 1, in our case, is.

“You have a bunch of guys on the third floor, not in suits, but they’re doing the hardcore Formula 1 business, engineering, fighting for thousandths of a second.

“Then you come to the second floor, that’s where you know the comms department is, and you get the Red Bull. Then, on the first floor, that’s where Racing Bulls and skateboarding are happening, and the music and the stuff, the fun stuff, and everything.

“That’s why it’s very connected. It’s a conscious decision to make hardcore business an entertainment experience.”

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The commissioning of the team’s new facility at Milton Keynes has allowed Racing Bulls to become a more attractive employer, giving staff the choice of working at Faenza or in the UK based on each individual’s own priorities in life.

This has been greatly helped by investment in state-of-the-art technologies which allow for on-the-fly communication and decision-making, and Bayer said there is “no doubt” that, in Italy at least, this flexibility is allowing the Faenza base, once the lovable but largely inconsequential Minardi squad, to stand up against Ferrari for the cream of the Italian F1 workforce.

“It becomes a lot easier to hire people because they know that they don’t have to move their families,” he said.

“They don’t have to go through a whole lot of turning their private life upside-down. There are fantastic facilities in a team that is value-driven, in a team that I think I can say is very open-minded in its approach, and so what we see is that we’re becoming more attractive as an employer.

“I think that’s the reality that we see on the market, and also I feel that, because we have it on both sides, we have state-of-the-art tech facilities in terms of doing video conferences and everything.

“Often, you don’t even realise people are not next to you. It’s become very natural. There’s a good flow of people going from Italy to the UK once a week, spending a couple of days there, then the guys from the UK would come down, and we have this natural flow of people moving in and out. It does come very naturally.”

Earlier this summer, rumours emerged that Ferrari is evaluating a UK base to go alongside its famed factory at Maranello, which could lead to greater diversity in the workforce of the Prancing Horse.

Having been able to see the effect of being a trailblazer in this area, would a similar approach benefit Ferrari in Bayer’s eyes?

“As somebody who’s based in Italy, I wouldn’t want to express myself, because it’s like telling the Pope to move to London!” he laughed.

“Ferrari probably is a different beast, because they are a very, very attractive employer.

“But again, you know what? The world is changing. The world has changed dramatically post-COVID.

“People do value their private lives.”

Poking some fun at former team boss Franz Tost, who was infamous for his belief that someone working in F1 needs to devote themselves entirely to the sport, Bayer joked, “Franz [Tost] would hate me for saying that… the work-life balance!

“If you can do what you love doing, and you can do it without relocating your family to Italy, I think it’s an advantage.”

Earlier this year, while still team boss of Racing Bulls, Laurent Mekies said that a significant step forward had been made across all areas by the team.

But in order to become possible front-runners in the sport, a step of a similar magnitude will be needed merely to propel the squad from midfield competency.

It sounds simple when spoken aloud, but just how big a challenge is it for Bayer and new team boss Permane to continue on the upward trajectory?

“That’s been one of the amazing strengths of Laurent that he has,” he said.

“He saw a tiny team back in the Toro Rosso days, and worked with a world-championship-winning team, which Ferrari was.

“So I guess he’s very qualified to tell you where we are in terms of that global quality of people, processes, tools, and, certainly, you have to do that step.

“I remember when I was still with the FIA, before we introduced the cost cap, I remember how much money the big teams were investing into new tools, new machines, new people.

“It was tens of millions going out within weeks, literally, they would start signing stuff, just to make sure that, before the deadline, they’ve got the stuff in place

“Obviously, we, as a small team now, in terms of cap, we are quite well protected in terms of the operating business and the in-year development.

“But we started, basically, with a Fiat, and they started with a Ferrari. Now, we have tuned our Fiat to a very quick and unique model, but still, we’re up against the Ferrari. That’s something you may not forget.

“You see those top four or five teams, and then you see, maybe not in terms of points, that Williams seems to have made a step for this year, running sort of in-between. They’re oscillating.

“That’s what it’s all about. It’s about building, it’s about continuing, and it’s about making those steps. That’s ultimately the challenge that we’re facing.”

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