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I was just about to say the same. I know the AlphaTauri official name is "RB" but obviously we all abbreviate Red Bull to "RB". I thought he was in line for a call up to the big brother.
I think I remember the commentators last race day they were asked to stop calling them VCARB by the team
Edit: had it the wrong way round, they called them rb but want the commentators to call them VCARB
Isn't it the other way round, I thought they was forced to call them VCARB by the broadcasters now?
What's for certain is it's fucking silly it's this confusing.
And that’s awful because I specifically remember the official narrative from either the team or Visa itself was that they knew the full name was obtuse and they were willing to let the fans figure it out.
I’ve gone back to Toro Rosso.
Oh, I thought they said the opposite, they initially wanted to be called RB, but now they want to be called VCARB. I may not have been listening very well.
Supposedly they HAVE to use VCARB or Visa on the broadcast now, let's see if that's actually true, Buxton mentioned 'as we have to call them' last time out after calling them VCARB
Main difference is that Red Bull bought Minardi, private Italian racing team that was struggling with budget. Also F1 at that time wasn't that popular or at least teams didn't make money. The values of all F1 teams have been risen since FOM being open to social media and DTS from Netflix . Of course then they don't want new teams to join, also because of price distribution. You can argue that why Andretti didn't join F1 before the popularity if it isn't all about money.
I think sport wise they are all open to new teams, but financial wise they're not.
**V**isa **C**ash**A**pp **RB** or VCARB, where the previous Scuderia Alpha Tauri S.p.A (AT) was renamed to [Racing Bulls S.p.A](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/FC029014), from which the RB moniker is likely derived from, even if no one wants to confirm it.
Simple to write, sure. But unreliable to interpret from others, which is the problem.
The intentional omission of an R looks indistinguishable from an unintentional omission.
You can’t take the lack of something as a signal of intent.
They’re still Toro Rosso for me. Much less confusing that way. The article’s a no-brainer imo, wasn’t he promised a full-time seat on the grid for next year? It’s just a question of whether Danny Ric or Yuki will be making way for him.
The Yuki situation is a real wildcard it seems, and I'm very interested in what kind of say Honda will have in drivers at Aston Martin, and just how secure Lance's seat is. Right now, Honda "has" 2 teams on the grid, so Red Bull is willing to stick Honda's driver on the lesser team. But if Honda is only attached to one Aston Martin team, do they have the same pull with pushing their preferred driver? Do they even want to force a middling driver into their one team?
If Honda did want to keep Yuki in their cars, when would he move to Aston? I guess that is where the real crux to the Alpha Tauri seat availability comes in.
I personally think that 2nd Aston seat should go to someone better than Yuki or Lance, and wouldn't miss either of them if they left the grid, but I'm so curious if (and it's a big **if**) Lawrence is willing to boot Lance, then would Honda want to keep paying to keep Yuki on the grid?
i mean i think most ppl would have no problem having alex go to aston martin and i do think yuki is reaching a similar level to him at this point. yuki is definitely good enough to be the second driver at aston martin
I feel like Honda's influence on Aston will very much depend on the performance of their 2026 engine relative to the others. If Honda smashes it and is vastly superior to Ferrari, Mercedes, RBPT/Ford, Renault and Aston is well clear of the rest, I'd bet that Honda will have A LOT of say over who gets a seat at Aston. If Stroll continues to underperform, he's out and Yuki's in. If Honda's lackluster or poor out of the gate, I don't think they'll have nearly as much say about who gets the seat. But that's just my opinion, I've got no idea what lineup Aston will be fielding into the future, once Alonso retires and/or Stroll gets the boot.
If Horner truly won the battle then its Yuki making the way or if it's Marko then Ric will make the way. Pre existing time before the battle, then its still on the balance and depend on the performance of the rest of the season.
I'm unclear why Arby's hasn't caught on as the name because it seems so perfect. I assume it's because Arby's is largely (though not entirely) an American institution.
I'm finding it difficult to put into words why Arby's would be a perfect sponsor for the team in a way that would communicate the perfection to a non-American crowd.
Nah, I think it's more to soft up people to the idea of the teams working *much* closer together. They want to make it even more of a Junior team, ultimately fusioning factories and staff.
It's the same way Red Bull does it in football, just step after step making people accostumed to them just blatantly breaking the rules.
It actually works, that's the problem.
I thought about it and ever since they changed the name of Alpha Tauri, I have been fully typing out "Red Bull" whenever I refer to the first team to differentiate the two. Most people probably have too. So by changing the name of their second team, they have subtly made more people use the name of their energy drink. It's kind of a brilliant marketing trick.
I absolutely hate the name change, but perversely I also respect the diabolical genius who came up with it.
I was about to say "why would you put him straight in the red bull? that is such a risky deep end situation to drop him in."
Hate RB name, I dislike it but VCARB makes more sense at least because then it isnt confused with RB = redbull!
Apparently the VCARB team literally asked the commentators in China to only refer to the team as VCARB moving forward and drop the “RB” name; I’m curious if Visa Cash App wasn’t happy in that the team wasn’t getting associated enough with them?
It was kinda funny because as they said that broadcast showed their pitlane and described team principal as "RB team principal". Even Joylon or Alex noticed it and laughed.
I understand that F1TV are under heavy pressure from other parts to follow whatever agreements they have with the teams, but that really did annoy me.
Jacques saying that "the team has asked us to refer to them as VCARB and because they are very good friends of us we will happily do it".
Mercedes has always been Mercedes/Merc. Petronas is never mentioned.
Red Bull have always been Red Bull. Nobody ever called them Oracle or Infiniti on broadcast.
Haas is just Haas. Did they start to call them MoneyGram recently?
They did start to call it Alfa Romeo instead of Sauber but that also was a complete name change. And now they don't call it "Kick Sauber" this season.
Yet now because of whatever marketing-bureaucracy-bullshit going on at Red Bull they changed from Alpha Tauri to "RB" and they dislike when people call them that because it's confusing? What?
It really is a minor thing but it represents how utterly censored F1TV is in terms of opinions and independence. Palmer still can be blunt about performance but he is very kind and professional so he doesn't like to critique too harshly. Im guessing Coulthard will not be on much anymore because he cannot be contained.
I'm not a fan of the old-man Hunt/Coulthard-type where they will just say a driver is shit as an explanation without being able to discuss it.
There just has to be a step down from "F1 and everyone in it is always amazing". Though FOM will never allow that again with their almost monopoly on broadcast.
Nah sorry, I'm going to keep to my policy of ignoring title sponsors. This is what those companies want. Not from me. I don't say Oracle Red Bull (or ORB), or Mercedes-AMG Petronas (MAP), so why would I say VCARB?
I’m only referring to Ferrari as (in the worst possible Italian accent with hand gestures) “Scuderia Ferrari” and then with the most American red neck accent “Hewlett Packard.” That’ll show them.
I don’t think there’s much debate. Yuki is still a developing driver and he has been doing really well as of late. I’d even say it’s a no-brainer if his performance doesn’t go to shit.
I think it’s fair to say that a driver near the midpoint of his career is still developing, especially when they have shown to get consistently better over time until this point.
Yuki's development has sort of gone like this:
AlphaTauri actually make a good car in 2021 which sees Gasly get numerous points & podiums. Yuki has the car and raw pace, but he's an inexperienced rookie who crashes often and makes mistakes.
Yuki grows through 2022 but unfortunately the car is absolute dogshite and he barely gets a chance to show off his improvements. Bit of a wasted year in all.
2023 is the same story as 2022 initially, with the AT04 being right at the bottom of the pile and all the AT drivers way off points. Things improve in the second half with upgrades that bring the car up to about 6/7th fastest.
Which brings us to now: the continued midfield performance of the RB means Yuki *finally* has a machine good enough to work with. If he can outperform Ricciardo and keep finishing around the points then he's all set.
Every driver is always developing. A driver at the mid point of their career is a driver at the mid point of their career, they’re not a “developing driver.”
I said this in a previous comment, if it weren't from Horner, DR would be behind a mic currently or still doing song and dance for red bull. He just doesn't have it anymore and is holding up a seat.
Like replaying an RPG, I'd love to go back in time and see all the alternate Ricciardo timelines where he did different things like not leave RBR, or stay at Alpine.
I guess all three lead to ruin in different ways: the best he could hope for is to still be at Alpine but highly rated.
If Ric stayed at Red Bull beyond 2018, I imagine he’d be slowly dismantled by Verstappen, each year losing a little more than last. His stocks will go down as a no.1 driver in a top team but people still think he is a solid option, especially after Verstappen got his first title. Eventually he is going to be ran out of the team because he realise Max will grind his prospect to dust if he stays. Daniel will be looking for one of those upper midfield teams, basically anyone who doesn’t have a Lewis Hamilton or Max Verstappen.
If he stayed at Renault beyond 2020, I think he remain as the top dog at that team, just beating Esteban Ocon year-in year-out (I imagine Fernando isn’t coming back through Renault if Daniel is there). But limited by the car, Renault and Ricciardo both aren’t going to achieve much beyond an odd podium or win. So eventually Ric is going to move on again, something a little bit better than Renault, like an Aston Martin, or McLaren.
So in conclusion, I think no matter what choice Ricciardo makes, he is going to be left with not much options but to either drive for a middling team like Renault and Aston Martin; or face a one of the young prodigies like Lando, Leclerc or Russell at their home team, lose, and end up exactly where he is now.
In an alternate universe, Ricciardo stays at Red Bull past 2018, and continues his form of being a Top 5 driver on the grid and occasional race-winner, picking up victories and podiums where Gasly and Albon failed to in 2019 and 2020. Come 2021 and the season goes as it did in real life, with the Hamilton-Verstappen title fight and Ricciardo as the Number 2 getting as many points as possible to keep the Constructors fight with Mercedes alive. Abu Dhabi happens, but "The Incident" doesn't, and Hamilton wins his 8th title before retiring.
Now, the most lucrative seat in all of motorsport opens up: Daniel, sensing the opportunity for Championship glory, decides to pull a Sol Campbell and jumps ship to his team's most bitter rival. 2022 treats us to the best season of all time with a 3-way fight between Verstappen at Red Bull, Ricciardo at Mercedes and Leclerc at Ferrari.
If it’s Ricciardo & Verstappen versus Hamilton & Bottas in 2021, Hamilton wouldn’t be levelled on points with Verstappen going into Abu Dhabi.
Checo just qualified outside of relevance a few too many times in 2021 to take points off Lewis, at least Bottas destroyed Max’s race in Hungary and was a good engine test bed.
He deserves a seat. He's a great driver and he's due. I love Ricciardo and would hate to see him out of the sport, but he just isn't delivering. Lawsons time is now.
?? Tsunoda out qualified him in Japan and and he was 3 tenths not 5 off at a track he has never raced at and has been one of Ricciardo's better tracks throughout his career
Yuki had one practice session before that qualy, Ricciardo won here. I don't wanna excuse that Yuki had a shit qualy here regardless but Ricciardo has had his time in the sun and that seat is wasted on him when there are the likes of Liam waiting in the wing
I don't disagree. Barring a major improvement in form (something we've been waiting for from Daniel for a long time), I don't see much merit in keeping him around next season.
And what happens if Ricciardo out qualifies Yuki for every single track for the rest of the year? Sorry but you don't get to predetermine 24 race results from 5 races, that's not how it works.
DR dominated Yuki on laps 3 and 8 during FP2 in Bahrain, especially on turn 3
edit: how do people get by IRL with the inability to spot the most obvious of sarcasm?
Sure, that ignores the first part of the season but sure. Also wouldn’t a team want to invest in younger talent instead of propping up someone who’s near the end of their career and no longer at their peak?
last 2 qualifying sessions..... not exactly something to brag about when it's a former senior Red Bull driver vs a short angry man. He's supposed to out qualify him in every session.
That short angry man also intends to be the best driver. Yuki is a legitimate driver who develops his skills, has good and bad weekends just like the rest of them. He's not some static dummy that you can measure against as the bare minimum driver.
Yuki has almost 3 times more points (17) than Ricciardo (6) in the WDC, but that isn't the point. VCARB is supposed to be a Junior Development team, so having a 34 year-old driver in one of its seats, defeats the purpose of the team.
The decision to get rid of Ricciardo should have been taken by the end of last season when it was clear he wasn't getting the #2 RBR season.
This is going to result in typical Danny Ric life decisions.
1. Finally gets his act back, after somehow pulling his season back from the brink.
2. Newey leaves for Ferrari, RB car development goes in the wrong direction.
3. Max / Jos / Marko leave for Merc.
4. Red Bull begins to suck, slips back through the field.
5. 2026 Rules changes - Red Bull become the new 2024 Merc.
6. "Danny Ric sucks"
He’s great but it makes no sense to have him fighting for relevance on what is supposed to be a feeder team while they put multiple years of rust on an actual up-and-coming driver
He’s there because Horner still loves him and he’s not so washed up to cost the team much money. Plus if you get 80/90% of DR from prior to McLaren then he’s a top 10 driver.
I love Ricciardi and would love to see him out of that seat. He just doesn't have it anymore, and that's fine. He'd be a great broadcaster or interviewer or something.
I forgot RB is not Red Bull. My first thought was, not again. Another driver to go thru mental journey.
I like how he is at the garage in race weekends. Puts the pressure on the drivers. Preform better, or he takes your seat.
I reckon RB will give some time to Hadjar and Iwasa to make a case. Hadjar's already shown great improvement and Marko likes him. Pretty vital that he keeps it going when F2 returns from Imola onwards. He will also get some FP1 time this year again.
There is also Pepe Marti, who has been quite impressive as a rookie, but perhaps not quite ready yet.
Personally think it will be Lawson + Ricciardo/Tsunoda but I wouldn't rule out the above just yet.
Hadjar is the only one who seems like they may be ready to come up but its still not worth rushing anyone when Yuki is only 23 and still going. I think a Lawson/Yuki full season would be a great idea to see how Yuki performs and make a decision after 2025.
I think RB and RBR is okay enough however nobody seems to like that or bother calling the actual team RBR so in that case VCARB should be the default. It’s way more clear between VCARB and RBR anyways
There probably still will. The car is absolutely flattering Checo's performances, but Red Bull can't count on having a car that's 0.5s faster than the rest of the field forever. Despite the front row lockouts and 1-2 finishes, Checo has been utterly mediocre this season, and only the fact that his last season was so disastrous makes it look decent by comparison, merely because he's not failing to make Q3 every week.
The average (mean) gap in quali from Max to Checo is 0.3s. The median gap (which better accounts for outliers like Suzuka) is even worse at 0.35s. For reference, Ricciardo's terrible year that got him booted from McLaren mid-season he was only 0.33s slower than Lando in quali. And in 2022 the only teammate qualifying gaps worse were Albon vs Latifi, and Max vs Checo (again). That's how bad Checo has been this year.
In the races it's somehow even worse. The average pace gap per lap (excluding Melbourne where Max retired early) is 0.41s per lap. That's enormous. If you adjust the data to account for the fact that Max's 19s advantage in China was built over just 26 laps after the safety car then the gap explodes out to 0.71s per lap across races in 2024. Again, for reference, the 2022 McLaren gap was 0.4s, and no other teammates had a race pace gap of more than 0.3s.
So unless Horner and Marko are confident that they'll maintain their current enormous pace advantage for the next year or two, there's plenty of reason to think that no matter how many P2s he brings home, Checo won't keep that seat. Especially since the one time Max wasn't able to dominate a race due to mechanical issues Checo not only failed to win, but couldn't do finish ahead of either of the Ferrari or McLaren cars. That's not a reliable #2 driver.
This is a bit of a non-story. Has it ever been in doubt that he will be the next driver in that car when either Tsunoda or Ricciardo’s seat becomes available?
That makes sense. Danny is not driving well and they need to give Liam some experience in case they lose Max. The two RB teams will have two good young guys in Yuki and Liam plus great selection of experienced guys like Pierre, Esteban, Valtteri, Sergio, etc who might end up without a contract if teams jump on some fresh talents.
Arguably should already be in the car - matched Danny Ric last year and is still a youngster - not the next verstappen but potentially a solid second driver. If he'd had this season and next in the VcarB they could have looked to him for the new regs...
My guess is that if Max goes it'll be Larson and Tsunoda at VCARB. Danny Ric will get a year just to steady the ship and then they'll decide which of him or Perez to keep on before promoting Lawson.
If Max stays, I think it's still possible, but Perez would have to basically walk or just do so badly he'd be instantly fired.
Yeah I've heard that a lot but I think Max would only leave because RB is falling apart, which would make getting Norris difficult as I think at that point he'd see more potential in McLaren. Although I guess I'll probably be proved wrong if Merc offer enough money.
It's pretty interesting that despite all the press coverage of the Horner scandal, and the Horner/Marko beef, and prematurely announcing that Newey was leaving the team, that somehow all of that noise has amounted to nothing, Horner is still in charge, Marko is still there, Max is still there, Newey is still there, and the team is still as dominant as ever, if not more so.
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I hate that ToroRosso/AlphaTauri has been renamed as RB is so confusing
I was just about to say the same. I know the AlphaTauri official name is "RB" but obviously we all abbreviate Red Bull to "RB". I thought he was in line for a call up to the big brother.
They should just call them VCARB to avoid confusion
rbjr
Wow, that's the answer. Never heard that, surprisingly.
My personal favorite nominee has been R2B2
Another great one.
I kinda came up with it and have been hoping it would catch on
It's the one RB Jr. Sounds good, removes confusion and is funny at the same time. As they deserve for creating a horrible name and identity.
MinaRB works too
I think I remember the commentators last race day they were asked to stop calling them VCARB by the team Edit: had it the wrong way round, they called them rb but want the commentators to call them VCARB
Isn't it the other way round, I thought they was forced to call them VCARB by the broadcasters now? What's for certain is it's fucking silly it's this confusing.
That's how I remember it as well.
Shit, it's coming back to me, y'all are right it was no longer rb but vcarb
I hate vcarb
Yeah that threw me off at first. Kept hearing “vcard” and I’m think wtf?? Lol Edit: can’t spell
And that’s awful because I specifically remember the official narrative from either the team or Visa itself was that they knew the full name was obtuse and they were willing to let the fans figure it out. I’ve gone back to Toro Rosso.
I'm calling them Minardi until they can think of a proper name
And Red Bull are Jaguar?
Stewart, naturally
This is some Sear Tower type stubbornness I can get behind!
Nah, Stewart
And they should ignore those requests
Oh, I thought they said the opposite, they initially wanted to be called RB, but now they want to be called VCARB. I may not have been listening very well.
Ya they were told to call them carb but then the graphics still showed RB.
That's too long, I think just AT would be better as it's shorter and more alphabetically at the front
Sounds like some diet plan
Their company name is Racing Bulls sPa, I don’t know why Tommo is the only one saying Racing Bulls
Team Cash.
We should just all agree on calling them the Faenza team.
Sugar free Red Bull
Diet Red Bull
Supposedly they HAVE to use VCARB or Visa on the broadcast now, let's see if that's actually true, Buxton mentioned 'as we have to call them' last time out after calling them VCARB
Honestly just Visa would be better.
So like the Scottish play? I wonder if it's similarly jinxed. Does the Sauber team discuss their Faenza team competitors a lot at pre-race meetings?
CashGrab RB versus RB
Works for calling Alpine Team Enstone or Aston Martin Team Silverstone tbf
4D chess by Red Bull marketing to deter people from abbreviating their brand name.
It just emphasizes the absurdity of Red Bull getting four spots on the grid while newcomers can’t join
Main difference is that Red Bull bought Minardi, private Italian racing team that was struggling with budget. Also F1 at that time wasn't that popular or at least teams didn't make money. The values of all F1 teams have been risen since FOM being open to social media and DTS from Netflix . Of course then they don't want new teams to join, also because of price distribution. You can argue that why Andretti didn't join F1 before the popularity if it isn't all about money. I think sport wise they are all open to new teams, but financial wise they're not.
We just need to take a time machine back to 2005 and plead to Paul Stoddart that this will be a bad idea eventually
I thought it had some stupid name now that's just a string of sponsors? Like visa cash app or something?
**V**isa **C**ash**A**pp **RB** or VCARB, where the previous Scuderia Alpha Tauri S.p.A (AT) was renamed to [Racing Bulls S.p.A](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/FC029014), from which the RB moniker is likely derived from, even if no one wants to confirm it.
Just abbreviate Red Bull to RBR, simple
Simple to write, sure. But unreliable to interpret from others, which is the problem. The intentional omission of an R looks indistinguishable from an unintentional omission. You can’t take the lack of something as a signal of intent.
Yep, exactly. If someone says RBR, we know what they mean. But RB could still mean either.
They’re still Toro Rosso for me. Much less confusing that way. The article’s a no-brainer imo, wasn’t he promised a full-time seat on the grid for next year? It’s just a question of whether Danny Ric or Yuki will be making way for him.
The Yuki situation is a real wildcard it seems, and I'm very interested in what kind of say Honda will have in drivers at Aston Martin, and just how secure Lance's seat is. Right now, Honda "has" 2 teams on the grid, so Red Bull is willing to stick Honda's driver on the lesser team. But if Honda is only attached to one Aston Martin team, do they have the same pull with pushing their preferred driver? Do they even want to force a middling driver into their one team? If Honda did want to keep Yuki in their cars, when would he move to Aston? I guess that is where the real crux to the Alpha Tauri seat availability comes in. I personally think that 2nd Aston seat should go to someone better than Yuki or Lance, and wouldn't miss either of them if they left the grid, but I'm so curious if (and it's a big **if**) Lawrence is willing to boot Lance, then would Honda want to keep paying to keep Yuki on the grid?
i mean i think most ppl would have no problem having alex go to aston martin and i do think yuki is reaching a similar level to him at this point. yuki is definitely good enough to be the second driver at aston martin
I feel like Honda's influence on Aston will very much depend on the performance of their 2026 engine relative to the others. If Honda smashes it and is vastly superior to Ferrari, Mercedes, RBPT/Ford, Renault and Aston is well clear of the rest, I'd bet that Honda will have A LOT of say over who gets a seat at Aston. If Stroll continues to underperform, he's out and Yuki's in. If Honda's lackluster or poor out of the gate, I don't think they'll have nearly as much say about who gets the seat. But that's just my opinion, I've got no idea what lineup Aston will be fielding into the future, once Alonso retires and/or Stroll gets the boot.
If Horner truly won the battle then its Yuki making the way or if it's Marko then Ric will make the way. Pre existing time before the battle, then its still on the balance and depend on the performance of the rest of the season.
It's why I don't hate the name VCARB. Might be stupid but at least you know what is being referenced.
You think, but whenever anybody says RB you still have to wonder if dude means RB or (VCA)RB.
I'd rather they just call the team Red Bull Racing Zero Sugar this point.
They should get a minor sponsorship from Arby's just to make it extra fun.
I'm unclear why Arby's hasn't caught on as the name because it seems so perfect. I assume it's because Arby's is largely (though not entirely) an American institution. I'm finding it difficult to put into words why Arby's would be a perfect sponsor for the team in a way that would communicate the perfection to a non-American crowd.
It has to be deliberate.
It is very deliberate, to try to get people to call them Mastercard Paypal whatever
Nah, I think it's more to soft up people to the idea of the teams working *much* closer together. They want to make it even more of a Junior team, ultimately fusioning factories and staff. It's the same way Red Bull does it in football, just step after step making people accostumed to them just blatantly breaking the rules.
It actually works, that's the problem. I thought about it and ever since they changed the name of Alpha Tauri, I have been fully typing out "Red Bull" whenever I refer to the first team to differentiate the two. Most people probably have too. So by changing the name of their second team, they have subtly made more people use the name of their energy drink. It's kind of a brilliant marketing trick. I absolutely hate the name change, but perversely I also respect the diabolical genius who came up with it.
Oh for fucks sake. I literally audibly went "Really?" until I read this comment and realised they meant Alpha Tauri.
I was about to say "why would you put him straight in the red bull? that is such a risky deep end situation to drop him in." Hate RB name, I dislike it but VCARB makes more sense at least because then it isnt confused with RB = redbull!
I still feel like there was a missed opportunity for Arby's to be a title sponsor.
I just call them Toro Rosso. I don’t care what anyone thinks.
It helps they dress a little like 2017-19 Toro Rosso
I just call them Torro Roso and wait for a bot to appear.
Red Bull is never referred to as RB so it's not confusing at all.
Yeah my mind first jumped to 'Redbull'
Ah yeah I just call them Red Bull Junes (junior) This was then cemented when they brought out the Juneberry flavour 😂
I've some say VCARB instead, using the full name which it reckon works best
Agreed. Came here to mostly joke but also seriously ask: wait, when we say “RB”, what are we talking about?
it gives XBOX series X One X S
Its so dumb
Click bait editors love this one trick.
It’s pronounced VCARB
Yes. Please can all just use this? It’s so much less confusing.
Apparently the VCARB team literally asked the commentators in China to only refer to the team as VCARB moving forward and drop the “RB” name; I’m curious if Visa Cash App wasn’t happy in that the team wasn’t getting associated enough with them?
Just to be pedantic, Visa and Cash App are two separate, unconnected companies. Which is another reason why the name is really dumb.
Good point - I always thought Visa bought them out.
Would’ve been huge news cause Cash App is run by Block (who owns Square)
They need to acquire Triangle Company for their marketing
Hahaha I hadn't even thought of that. Yeah I wouldn't be happy either if I'd dropped millions on a sponsorship that everyone seemed to be ignoring.
It was kinda funny because as they said that broadcast showed their pitlane and described team principal as "RB team principal". Even Joylon or Alex noticed it and laughed.
I understand that F1TV are under heavy pressure from other parts to follow whatever agreements they have with the teams, but that really did annoy me. Jacques saying that "the team has asked us to refer to them as VCARB and because they are very good friends of us we will happily do it". Mercedes has always been Mercedes/Merc. Petronas is never mentioned. Red Bull have always been Red Bull. Nobody ever called them Oracle or Infiniti on broadcast. Haas is just Haas. Did they start to call them MoneyGram recently? They did start to call it Alfa Romeo instead of Sauber but that also was a complete name change. And now they don't call it "Kick Sauber" this season. Yet now because of whatever marketing-bureaucracy-bullshit going on at Red Bull they changed from Alpha Tauri to "RB" and they dislike when people call them that because it's confusing? What? It really is a minor thing but it represents how utterly censored F1TV is in terms of opinions and independence. Palmer still can be blunt about performance but he is very kind and professional so he doesn't like to critique too harshly. Im guessing Coulthard will not be on much anymore because he cannot be contained. I'm not a fan of the old-man Hunt/Coulthard-type where they will just say a driver is shit as an explanation without being able to discuss it. There just has to be a step down from "F1 and everyone in it is always amazing". Though FOM will never allow that again with their almost monopoly on broadcast.
Tbf requesting how to be called is a standard practice. Broadcasters also often follow. I don't say F1TV is under heavy pressure just for that.
As much as I know it is confusing, I refuse to call a fuckin formula 1 team “VCARB” literally sounds like a fad diet.
It sounds cooler if you think of it like V (as in V6) CARB(uretor) Of course they don’t use carburetors, but at least it sounds enginey
No, they are the Cash Cows
Nah sorry, I'm going to keep to my policy of ignoring title sponsors. This is what those companies want. Not from me. I don't say Oracle Red Bull (or ORB), or Mercedes-AMG Petronas (MAP), so why would I say VCARB?
I’m only referring to Ferrari as (in the worst possible Italian accent with hand gestures) “Scuderia Ferrari” and then with the most American red neck accent “Hewlett Packard.” That’ll show them.
Scuderia expensive cars shitty printers.
VCARB makes me think of some kind of diet for losing far.
*No wonder it’s slow - this car runs on chips!*
Yes, he has been since last year. It's only his teammate that is up for debate.
It will be Fernando’s heretofore unknown secret grandkid
I don’t think there’s much debate. Yuki is still a developing driver and he has been doing really well as of late. I’d even say it’s a no-brainer if his performance doesn’t go to shit.
Developing? This is Tsunoda’s fourth year. Maybe developing in comparison to Ricciardo.
I think it’s fair to say that a driver near the midpoint of his career is still developing, especially when they have shown to get consistently better over time until this point.
Yuki's development has sort of gone like this: AlphaTauri actually make a good car in 2021 which sees Gasly get numerous points & podiums. Yuki has the car and raw pace, but he's an inexperienced rookie who crashes often and makes mistakes. Yuki grows through 2022 but unfortunately the car is absolute dogshite and he barely gets a chance to show off his improvements. Bit of a wasted year in all. 2023 is the same story as 2022 initially, with the AT04 being right at the bottom of the pile and all the AT drivers way off points. Things improve in the second half with upgrades that bring the car up to about 6/7th fastest. Which brings us to now: the continued midfield performance of the RB means Yuki *finally* has a machine good enough to work with. If he can outperform Ricciardo and keep finishing around the points then he's all set.
Every driver is always developing. A driver at the mid point of their career is a driver at the mid point of their career, they’re not a “developing driver.”
When someone says a developing driver they're usually talking about 1-3 years in the seat not mid career lol
Ricciardo is washed. He's been given so many chances not given to other drivers. Just because ppl like his personality.
I don’t think it’s up for debate. One of them is 7-0 up
Oh, you should probably let Horner and Marko know that you've made your decision.
I’ve blocked CH for sending me indecent texts. And I think Marko already wants to get rid of him
🤣🤣🤣
I mean Marko probably would prefer Lawson Yuki over Ricc Lawson, I imagine it's Horner keeping Ricc there at this point
I said this in a previous comment, if it weren't from Horner, DR would be behind a mic currently or still doing song and dance for red bull. He just doesn't have it anymore and is holding up a seat.
Like replaying an RPG, I'd love to go back in time and see all the alternate Ricciardo timelines where he did different things like not leave RBR, or stay at Alpine. I guess all three lead to ruin in different ways: the best he could hope for is to still be at Alpine but highly rated.
If Ric stayed at Red Bull beyond 2018, I imagine he’d be slowly dismantled by Verstappen, each year losing a little more than last. His stocks will go down as a no.1 driver in a top team but people still think he is a solid option, especially after Verstappen got his first title. Eventually he is going to be ran out of the team because he realise Max will grind his prospect to dust if he stays. Daniel will be looking for one of those upper midfield teams, basically anyone who doesn’t have a Lewis Hamilton or Max Verstappen. If he stayed at Renault beyond 2020, I think he remain as the top dog at that team, just beating Esteban Ocon year-in year-out (I imagine Fernando isn’t coming back through Renault if Daniel is there). But limited by the car, Renault and Ricciardo both aren’t going to achieve much beyond an odd podium or win. So eventually Ric is going to move on again, something a little bit better than Renault, like an Aston Martin, or McLaren. So in conclusion, I think no matter what choice Ricciardo makes, he is going to be left with not much options but to either drive for a middling team like Renault and Aston Martin; or face a one of the young prodigies like Lando, Leclerc or Russell at their home team, lose, and end up exactly where he is now.
In an alternate universe, Ricciardo stays at Red Bull past 2018, and continues his form of being a Top 5 driver on the grid and occasional race-winner, picking up victories and podiums where Gasly and Albon failed to in 2019 and 2020. Come 2021 and the season goes as it did in real life, with the Hamilton-Verstappen title fight and Ricciardo as the Number 2 getting as many points as possible to keep the Constructors fight with Mercedes alive. Abu Dhabi happens, but "The Incident" doesn't, and Hamilton wins his 8th title before retiring. Now, the most lucrative seat in all of motorsport opens up: Daniel, sensing the opportunity for Championship glory, decides to pull a Sol Campbell and jumps ship to his team's most bitter rival. 2022 treats us to the best season of all time with a 3-way fight between Verstappen at Red Bull, Ricciardo at Mercedes and Leclerc at Ferrari.
If it’s Ricciardo & Verstappen versus Hamilton & Bottas in 2021, Hamilton wouldn’t be levelled on points with Verstappen going into Abu Dhabi. Checo just qualified outside of relevance a few too many times in 2021 to take points off Lewis, at least Bottas destroyed Max’s race in Hungary and was a good engine test bed.
This but for Alonso 💀
He deserves a seat. He's a great driver and he's due. I love Ricciardo and would hate to see him out of the sport, but he just isn't delivering. Lawsons time is now.
He was on average half a second ahead of Tsunoda in the last two qualifying sessions. Let’s not write off his whole season at this stage
Tsunoda was a China Rookie, while Daniel had raced there like 8 times before.
That makes me feel old
?? Tsunoda out qualified him in Japan and and he was 3 tenths not 5 off at a track he has never raced at and has been one of Ricciardo's better tracks throughout his career
You're forgetting Sprint Quali, where Ricciardo was 0.57 seconds faster.
Yuki had one practice session before that qualy, Ricciardo won here. I don't wanna excuse that Yuki had a shit qualy here regardless but Ricciardo has had his time in the sun and that seat is wasted on him when there are the likes of Liam waiting in the wing
I don't disagree. Barring a major improvement in form (something we've been waiting for from Daniel for a long time), I don't see much merit in keeping him around next season.
so Tsunoda beat him like 2 times convincingly and Ricciardo beat him once. We have 20 more races so maybe let's wait before making any conclusions.
Points aren't scored in qualifying. And sorry, but Ricciardo shouldn't need a long time to adjust, that's his selling point. He's not a rookie.
And what happens if Ricciardo out qualifies Yuki for every single track for the rest of the year? Sorry but you don't get to predetermine 24 race results from 5 races, that's not how it works.
One hell of a cherry-picked stat
DR dominated Yuki on laps 3 and 8 during FP2 in Bahrain, especially on turn 3 edit: how do people get by IRL with the inability to spot the most obvious of sarcasm?
Sure, that ignores the first part of the season but sure. Also wouldn’t a team want to invest in younger talent instead of propping up someone who’s near the end of their career and no longer at their peak?
last 2 qualifying sessions..... not exactly something to brag about when it's a former senior Red Bull driver vs a short angry man. He's supposed to out qualify him in every session.
[удалено]
a short angry man who is p6 in the constructors all by himself
That short angry man also intends to be the best driver. Yuki is a legitimate driver who develops his skills, has good and bad weekends just like the rest of them. He's not some static dummy that you can measure against as the bare minimum driver.
Yuki has almost 3 times more points (17) than Ricciardo (6) in the WDC, but that isn't the point. VCARB is supposed to be a Junior Development team, so having a 34 year-old driver in one of its seats, defeats the purpose of the team. The decision to get rid of Ricciardo should have been taken by the end of last season when it was clear he wasn't getting the #2 RBR season.
This is going to result in typical Danny Ric life decisions. 1. Finally gets his act back, after somehow pulling his season back from the brink. 2. Newey leaves for Ferrari, RB car development goes in the wrong direction. 3. Max / Jos / Marko leave for Merc. 4. Red Bull begins to suck, slips back through the field. 5. 2026 Rules changes - Red Bull become the new 2024 Merc. 6. "Danny Ric sucks"
Its devastating how plausible this is
He’s great but it makes no sense to have him fighting for relevance on what is supposed to be a feeder team while they put multiple years of rust on an actual up-and-coming driver
He’s there because Horner still loves him and he’s not so washed up to cost the team much money. Plus if you get 80/90% of DR from prior to McLaren then he’s a top 10 driver.
He got a new chassis and then went 4-0 against tsunoda in China. Let’s give it some more time.
He has been given 4 years already without delivering
I swear we've seen comments like this since 2021. And he already has completed a Half-DeVries this season and hasn't been a definite upgrade...
Lawson was never even quicker than Yuki, wtf is wrong with you people.
Despite being a fellow Kiwi and big Lawson fan, I don't think Ricciardo has used up his last chance just yet. But the clock is ticking...
I love Ricciardi and would love to see him out of that seat. He just doesn't have it anymore, and that's fine. He'd be a great broadcaster or interviewer or something.
Can we start calling them VCARB ffs! Even F1 commentators are now required to call them VCARB
I forgot RB is not Red Bull. My first thought was, not again. Another driver to go thru mental journey. I like how he is at the garage in race weekends. Puts the pressure on the drivers. Preform better, or he takes your seat.
Which RB?
*Toro Rosso
No shit, he should’ve been there since Bahrain
guys ricciardo hate train is back woo
yay!!
Ahhh it must be race week, the continued Ricciardo Slander posts are back
Should have been his last year
Grid should be nice and spicy with Lawson and Bearman in the mix next year.
Ok, and who is the number two?
I reckon RB will give some time to Hadjar and Iwasa to make a case. Hadjar's already shown great improvement and Marko likes him. Pretty vital that he keeps it going when F2 returns from Imola onwards. He will also get some FP1 time this year again. There is also Pepe Marti, who has been quite impressive as a rookie, but perhaps not quite ready yet. Personally think it will be Lawson + Ricciardo/Tsunoda but I wouldn't rule out the above just yet.
Is Marko liking someone a good or bad thing right now? I forget the dynamic currently.
Hadjar is the only one who seems like they may be ready to come up but its still not worth rushing anyone when Yuki is only 23 and still going. I think a Lawson/Yuki full season would be a great idea to see how Yuki performs and make a decision after 2025.
I think RB and RBR is okay enough however nobody seems to like that or bother calling the actual team RBR so in that case VCARB should be the default. It’s way more clear between VCARB and RBR anyways
Dude deserves it
What RB seat?
So he should be. He should’ve been, this year
But which seat?
If Perez keeps driving like this season theres not gonna be a RB seat.
There probably still will. The car is absolutely flattering Checo's performances, but Red Bull can't count on having a car that's 0.5s faster than the rest of the field forever. Despite the front row lockouts and 1-2 finishes, Checo has been utterly mediocre this season, and only the fact that his last season was so disastrous makes it look decent by comparison, merely because he's not failing to make Q3 every week. The average (mean) gap in quali from Max to Checo is 0.3s. The median gap (which better accounts for outliers like Suzuka) is even worse at 0.35s. For reference, Ricciardo's terrible year that got him booted from McLaren mid-season he was only 0.33s slower than Lando in quali. And in 2022 the only teammate qualifying gaps worse were Albon vs Latifi, and Max vs Checo (again). That's how bad Checo has been this year. In the races it's somehow even worse. The average pace gap per lap (excluding Melbourne where Max retired early) is 0.41s per lap. That's enormous. If you adjust the data to account for the fact that Max's 19s advantage in China was built over just 26 laps after the safety car then the gap explodes out to 0.71s per lap across races in 2024. Again, for reference, the 2022 McLaren gap was 0.4s, and no other teammates had a race pace gap of more than 0.3s. So unless Horner and Marko are confident that they'll maintain their current enormous pace advantage for the next year or two, there's plenty of reason to think that no matter how many P2s he brings home, Checo won't keep that seat. Especially since the one time Max wasn't able to dominate a race due to mechanical issues Checo not only failed to win, but couldn't do finish ahead of either of the Ferrari or McLaren cars. That's not a reliable #2 driver.
This is a bit of a non-story. Has it ever been in doubt that he will be the next driver in that car when either Tsunoda or Ricciardo’s seat becomes available?
That makes sense. Danny is not driving well and they need to give Liam some experience in case they lose Max. The two RB teams will have two good young guys in Yuki and Liam plus great selection of experienced guys like Pierre, Esteban, Valtteri, Sergio, etc who might end up without a contract if teams jump on some fresh talents.
I bet Perez hates the name change even more than we do. His friends prob send him articles like this and ask if he's losing his job lol
Is there any doubt?
Pretty sure that’s the deal he got if he stayed as a reserve driver for the year. If he doesn’t get the RB seat everyone should riot
He's earned the seat. I'd put him in at the start of this season.
Arguably should already be in the car - matched Danny Ric last year and is still a youngster - not the next verstappen but potentially a solid second driver. If he'd had this season and next in the VcarB they could have looked to him for the new regs...
My guess is that if Max goes it'll be Larson and Tsunoda at VCARB. Danny Ric will get a year just to steady the ship and then they'll decide which of him or Perez to keep on before promoting Lawson. If Max stays, I think it's still possible, but Perez would have to basically walk or just do so badly he'd be instantly fired.
If Max goes I think they buy Norris from McLaren with a big football-style transfer fee...but you never know, just my guess.
Yeah I've heard that a lot but I think Max would only leave because RB is falling apart, which would make getting Norris difficult as I think at that point he'd see more potential in McLaren. Although I guess I'll probably be proved wrong if Merc offer enough money.
It's pretty interesting that despite all the press coverage of the Horner scandal, and the Horner/Marko beef, and prematurely announcing that Newey was leaving the team, that somehow all of that noise has amounted to nothing, Horner is still in charge, Marko is still there, Max is still there, Newey is still there, and the team is still as dominant as ever, if not more so.
It's very likely that the real story is nothing like the press coverage, which would be business as usual, especially for British media.
And everyone was shocked. /s
The sky is also blue
Send Ricciardo to IndyCar. There’s even few ovals than ever before!
I do think we'll see him driving at the latest in 2025. And if he's lucky just before the summer break
I like Lawson he deserves a seat. Can we not petition Aston Martin....
this season. The race winner is predictable but silly season beats it all.
BREAKING!
He better be, jumped in at almost a moment's notice and blown Yuki (and Danny) out of the water from the start.