F1 has added two new team names this season, following the sport's marketing-focused trend: Visa Cash App RB Formula One Team and Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber.
Sauber Motorsport has been racing under various names since 1993, most recently as Alfa Romeo. The stake will take over the name this season and next, with Audi taking over in 2026.
“Before Audi's entry, we felt it was important to present this new identity and establish a commercial partnership,” said stake team representative Alessandro Arunni Bravi. “The Sauber Group has been in F1 for 32 years, but this does not mean we have forgotten what Sauber is. , which means we want to present ourselves as new, fresh, and different.”
AlphaTauri, which entered F1 as Toro Rosso in 2006, will now take on the Visa Cash App name.
“Andrea Fairchild, Visa's head of sponsorship, said that's a bit of a stretch,” said Peter Beyer, the team's chief executive. “The reality is that we said from the beginning last year that we were going to move closer to the Red Bull family.”
RB stands for Racing Bulls, a reference to a collection of airplanes known as the Flying Bulls owned by team founder Dietrich Mateschitz.
“It fits well,” Beyer said. “But then we ran into a big problem because Visa, one of the biggest brands in the world, and Cash App, one of the greatest brands in the financial world, especially in the United States, were both privately owned. Because we wanted to partner with them.
“We were like, 'Yeah, we're going to be the Visa Cash App RB Formula One Team.'” Aston Martin, you don't hear too many people calling it the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team, and the MoneyGram Haas F1 Team. I don't even hear people talking about it. Therefore, we need to be realistic and focus on content. It's a really beautiful and fast car. ”
Canadian rap artist Drake narrated Sauber's social media video announcing its name change.
It will be known as a stakes F1 team for 20 of this year's record-breaking 24 Grands Prix. The remaining four countries – Australia, Spain, Belgium and Qatar – will return to Kick Sauber.
As Stake is an online crypto casino, this change is to comply with gambling advertising laws in these four countries. Its owner is also responsible for Kick, a live streaming platform.
“We fully comply with all applicable local laws under which we are permitted to stake,” Arunni Brabi said. “So if gambling advertising is prohibited, we will use a different name.
“Our car launch was live streamed on Kick.com. Our chassis name is Kick Sauber, so if we are not racing as a stake we will use our second team name. ”
Both teams' names have been criticized, with some fans posting on social media. “F1 team Kick Sauber might be the worst team name in F1 history,” a fan wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
“Whenever you try something new and give your team a name that is different from other teams, you tend to be critical,” Alunni Brabi said. “Of course there was some criticism from people close to the Sauber name and maybe they were expecting something different.
“Maybe we're going too extreme, but we wanted to do something new and engaging for our fan base. When Drake announced our name, we had 22 million views. We got impressions, which we would never have achieved with a single post on a social media platform. That was huge.”
For Bayer, Visa's landing was a major coup. “Visa is a great brand, as you can see from the growth rate of F1 in the US, which is a huge market for sports marketing,” he said.
“They've been to the Super Bowl, the Olympics, the FIFA World Cup and now they're an F1 team. It's an honor and a big opportunity for us. They bring so many fresh ideas to the table. Sho.”
American rapper Kendrick Lamar performed at the team's launch event in Las Vegas earlier this month. “We are merging sports and entertainment, bringing in new fans and activating new fan groups with new ways of communicating,” Beyer said. “This is a great opportunity for F1.”
