Would a sale of AlphaTauri damage Red Bull’s young driver development programme?

There are numerous reports, rumours and speculation that the new bosses at Red Bull GmbH are looking to sell their second Formula 1 entry AlphaTauri, advertising the company's designer fashion brand. 2026 is the apparent new date that Red Bull ‘will sell the team before’ but what will the impact of the sale have on the Faenza team and on the Red Bull junior program itself which has been hugely successful in its time in operation.

The team joined the grid in 2006 after the former co-founder of Red Bull, Dietrich Mateschitz bought the team off struggling backmarker Minardi at the end of 2005. Torro Rosso was then born, keeping with its Italian Minardi DNA the neat name comes from the direct Italian translation of ‘Red Bull’. The idea branded as “a junior team to Red Bull Racing” was aimed to develop the skills of promising young drivers to potentially drive for the senior outfit. The alumni of drivers are steeped in world champions and upper echelons of drivers who have achieved great things within the motorsports world; Sebastian Vettel, Max Verstappen, Daniel Ricciardo, Alex Albon, Carlos Sainz and Pierre Gasly just to name some of the lists of special talents the program has brought through over its existence.

Throughout 2023 there have been numerous rumours around the sale, in February Dr Helmut Marko head of Red Bull’s driver development programme cleared the air around the situation and was quoted about the sale saying “What is not satisfactory is that AlphaTauri costs more (to run) than Red Bull, so what do we do? Do we restructure? Do you stay in Italy? Do you move the team partially to England or maybe even completely? Do you sell the whole thing? These were the considerations”. He then stressed his strong opinion to keep two teams stating “We need a second team, simple as that. Especially also for the (Red Bull Powertrains) engines, it has to work”.

Marko alluded to the first issue Red Bull would have if they were to sell, separately from the young driver programme. The Red Bull powertrains program would lose vital track and development time with the new 2026 engines, producing triple the electrical power of the existing hybrid components mainly from the MGU-K. Red Bull would go from four Red Bull Powertrains cars to two, a problem that Alpine and Renault have been having ever since they lost Red Bull as a customer team at the end of 2018. An issue that Audi will also struggle with as it too is entering into Formula 1 as an engine manufacturer in 2026.

As you can imagine, for a young driver programme in the costly business of Formula 1, it costs an extreme amount to run. Estimated to be costing “Red Bull (GmbH) around $83 million+ into the team (each year)” says F1 business expert and former Red Bull and Jordan employee Mark Gallagher, where the latest speculation talks of a sale have come from. He went on about how new Red Bull chief Oliver Mintzlaff would potentially see no future for the team “You can imagine that someone like Oliver Mintzlaff will be looking at (it) thinking, ‘We don’t need this, it’s surplus to requirements’”.

If there were to be a sale how would they continue their young driver programme? Loaning out drivers in Formula 1 is nothing new with a range of teams mainly Mercedes and Red Bull in recent years loaning out drivers such as Esteban Ocon to Manor, Carlos Sainz to Renault and George Russell to Williams for them to gain experience and develop their skill set in Formula 1.

So realistically they could still operate the program in a new way using a loan system, in addition to Red Bull’s strong negotiation power, they could attempt to get their young drivers in spaces on the grid. But this is not guaranteed for instance other academies such as Mercedes, Ferrari, Alpine, Sauber and the Frank Williams Academy all have their talent pool of drivers and will surely favour their own over other academies due to the money out into their various junior academy development teams. Would Red Bull rely on pure luck and hope for other teams to accept their junior drivers instead of from their own stock? Hope a team like McLaren who at the moment have a lack of academy drivers in the higher junior formulas to take in those from the Red Bull Junior programme. There is not a lot of guarantee in the only real available option if there was a sale via the loaning system.

Only time will tell if the team is sold, the young driver programme would indeed struggle to guarantee spots every year for Red Bull juniors if they sold AlphaTauri and opted for the only viable solution of loaning drivers. Over the years the programme has proven with the amount of talent it has found, nurtured and developed why it’s such a crucial weapon that Red Bull possesses in its arsenal. It has produced some of the best talent in the world and having a second team it's a really unique plus point that no other team in Formula 1 has, and a plus point that they would all probably want to have.