TEAM PREVIEW: Can Racing Bulls put on a charge with their new name and another new driver?

Red Bull’s sister team have tweaked their identity for 2025 by adopting a more aligned Racing Bulls moniker, while another driver change sees F2 runner-up Isack Hadjar slot in alongside experienced incumbent Yuki Tsunoda. After back-to-back P8 finishes in the Constructors’ Standings, what are the chances of Laurent Mekies’ outfit making progress this time out? Here’s everything you need to know about them – and their ambitions – ahead of the new season…

Drivers for 2025

Isack Hadjar #6: Rookie season
Yuki Tsunoda #22: Best finish of P4, 91 points, 87 starts

Yuki Tsunoda enjoyed arguably his strongest F1 season to date in 2024, but the Japanese racer will spend a fifth term with the same squad after missing out on a Red Bull promotion to part-time team mate Liam Lawson.

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In Lawson’s place comes French youngster Isack Hadjar, last year’s F2 championship runner-up – after an agonising stall at the Abu Dhabi finale – and a member of Red Bull’s dedicated junior programme since 2022.

Tsunoda, 24, continues for another season with Racing Bulls in 2025

F2 runner-up Isack Hadjar has stepped up to F1 to partner Tsunoda at Racing Bulls

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Tsunoda, 24, continues for another season with Racing Bulls in 2025

Last season

As touched on above, Tsunoda hit another level early in the 2024 campaign, scoring points at five of the opening eight Grand Prix weekends and leading RB’s charge while team mate Daniel Ricciardo struggled to hit form.

After the Singapore Grand Prix, with Tsunoda sitting on 22 points to Ricciardo’s 12, Red Bull chiefs decided that enough was enough and dropped the Australian in favour of 2023 super-sub Lawson, who had been patiently waiting on the sidelines.

Tsunoda and Lawson were much more closely matched over the remaining flyaway races, bagging a solid haul of points together, but it was not quite enough to beat Haas and Alpine in a tight battle for sixth in the Constructors’.

Tsunoda raced with Ricciardo and Lawson over the course of the 2024 season

History

Racing Bulls’ place in the sport can be traced back to Minardi, who were based in Italy and competed in F1 from 1985 to 2005, when late Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz acquired the team and initially called it Toro Rosso (Red Bull in Italian).

Toro Rosso’s primary goal was to nurture young talent and guide them toward the senior Red Bull outfit, with future Grand Prix winner Ricciardo and future World Champions Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen spending time there in the early stages of their careers.

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Vettel memorably achieved Toro Rosso’s first pole position and F1 victory at the 2008 Italian Grand Prix when he mastered tricky, wet conditions around the Monza circuit through qualifying and the race – before Red Bull Racing had reached such milestones.

Toro Rosso, who were renamed as AlphaTauri (after Red Bull’s clothing arm) in 2020 and became RB for 2024, are still primarily based in Faenza, Italy, but recently moved their UK offices from Bicester to Milton Keynes, where Red Bull are located.

2008 vs. 2020: Vettel and Gasly celebrate emotional first F1 wins at Monza

Greatest achievement

Not one but two Monza results stand out from the team’s post-Minardi era, with Vettel’s masterful pole and victory double being added to by Pierre Gasly’s spectacular, surprise win in a rollercoaster 2020 race.

Via a well-timed tyre change, Safety Car periods and leader Lewis Hamilton’s penalty for visiting the pit lane when it was closed, Gasly emerged at the head of the field and brilliantly kept McLaren rival Carlos Sainz at bay to the finish.

It was an emotional moment for Gasly on many levels – the Frenchman bouncing back from his Red Bull demotion and paying tribute to fellow countryman and friend Anthoine Hubert, who had passed away the previous year following an F2 accident.

ZANDVOORT, NETHERLANDS - AUGUST 24: Laurent Mekies Team Principal of Visa Cash App RB during — Mekies will be looking for clear progress in his second season as Racing Bulls’ team boss

One key goal for 2025

Veteran F1 team boss Franz Tost, who retired at the end of the 2023 season and was replaced by the aforementioned Mekies, harboured hopes of guiding Toro Rosso/AlphaTauri to fifth in the Constructors’ Championship – only to come agonisingly close with a personal best sixth.

Even if that remains a tall order, Racing Bulls can take confidence from being in the mix for P6 last year, especially after righting the wrongs of a confusing update package introduced at the Spanish Grand Prix, while their raft of 2024 hires have also settled in.

All things considered, finishing higher than eighth in the championship for the first time since 2021 – when the then-named AlphaTauri reached that high of a top-six classification – would represent a realistic and respectable goal.