Redbull’s second team formerly known as Alpha Tauri has recently re-branded itself as Visa cash app RB, with many fans claiming it to be the worst F1 team name ever.

Finlay Mcsporran
Published: 16:59, 25 Jan 2024

This isn’t the first time that an F1 team has had a strange name and we’ve put together a list of some of the strangest in the sports history.

Stake F1 team

Before Alpha Tauri rebranded, Stake F1 team was for a short while the strangest F1 team name. The team formerly known as Alpha Romeo is currently going through a transitional period before there taken over by Audi in 2026. In the meantime the team is having to survive off of sponsorships, with online casino company ‘Stake’ paying for the naming rights over the team.

This is controversial as eight of the countries featured on the 2024 calendar have restrictions on gambling. This is nothing new in F1 but it’s a different story when its the teams actual name.

Goldie Hexagon Racing

This team got its name from London car dealer John Goldie who ran the Hexagon garage business in Highgate. The company used motor racing as a promotional tool and this culminated in 1974 when the company ran a semi-works Brabham BT42 for John Watson. They would secure a best finish of fourth at the 1974 Austrian grand prix before Hexagon withdrew from F1 at the end of the year.

Toro Rosso

Redbulls second team has gone through many names in their time but probably the most famous of those is Toro Rosso. The team joined the F1 grid back in 2006 and since then has been used as a testing ground for young Redbull drivers, with the likes of Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel racing for the team.

But something that people often forget about the team is its name, Toro Rosso, which is Italian and literally translates to Redbull meaning that from 2006 – 2019 there were technically two teams called Redbull.

Despite being Redbulls B-team, Toro Rosso won a race before Redbull did, when Sebastian Vettel won the 2008 Italian grand prix to take his and his teams first victory in F1.

Visa Cash App RB

The current iteration of this team might not be remembered so fondly however, with the team recently being renamed to Visa Cash app RB and rightly earning the title of worst F1 team name ever. Redbull selling the naming rights to the highest bidder strips it of personality, identity and ambition which must be depressing for the staff and fans. But this isn’t the first time that an F1 team has been named after a bank card.

MasterCard Lola

In 1997 team principal Eric Broadley started a formula one team that would be owned by Lola, a British race car engineering company, with the primary sponsor being Mastercard.

The team had high aspirations but these were quickly shattered when they arrived for qualifying at the 1977 Australian grand prix and qualified last by a considerable margin. The rules at the time stated that drivers would only be allowed to compete in the race if they qualified within 107% of the pole position time. With their two cars 11 and 13 seconds off pole they were nowhere near achieving this and never got to compete in the race.

This would turn out to be the closest they would get to racing as on the Wednesday before the Brazilian grand prix that year Lola announced it was withdrawing from the Brazil race due to “financial and technical problems”. Shortly afterwards, Lola withdrew from the championship outright, putting an end to the Mastercard F1 team.

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