Emilia-Romagna, Italy. The Italian base has been continuous since Minardi. The team has been Italian in identity and British in engine partnership since 1985.
From Giancarlo Minardi's passion project to Red Bull's revolving door of future champions.
1985–2005
Minardi Team SpA
Founded by Giancarlo Minardi in Faenza. Always at the back, always solvent by the slimmest margin, always a stepping stone for drivers who would become champions elsewhere. Fittipaldi, Webber, Alonso's first test, Coulthard. The most beloved underdog in Formula One history.
2006–2019
Scuderia Toro Rosso
Red Bull purchased Minardi in 2005 for approximately $37 million. Renamed for 2006. Operated as the junior team for Red Bull Racing's driver development programme. Vettel's 2008 Monza win is the defining moment. Honda engine partnership from 2018.
2020–2023
Scuderia AlphaTauri
Red Bull renamed the team after their AlphaTauri clothing brand for 2020. Gasly won at Monza in the first season. The branding made the team difficult for casual fans to locate in search results. Renamed again for 2024.
2024–present
Visa Cash App RB / RB F1 Team
Simplified to 'RB' for 2024. The commercial sponsors required in the team name reflect Formula One's naming conventions. Still the Red Bull junior team. Still in Faenza.
Giancarlo Minardi kept this team alive on passion for twenty years. Red Bull has kept it alive on purpose for twenty more.
1985–2005: The Minardi Years
Giancarlo Minardi entered Formula One in 1985 with a Ford Cosworth engine, modest resources, and ambitions that always exceeded what his budget could reliably deliver. The team became famous for something unusual: being beloved despite — or because of — never challenging for victories. Minardi was where drivers came when they were not yet ready for a top team, or when a top team hadn't given them a chance yet. Mark Webber scored the team's best-ever result — fifth in Melbourne 2002 — on a debut drive in which he outperformed four better-funded cars. Fernando Alonso tested for Minardi. He later called Giancarlo Minardi a genuinely important figure in his career.
2002: Webber and the Australian Moment
Mark Webber's debut for Minardi at the 2002 Australian Grand Prix is the canonical Minardi story. Fifth place, in machinery that should not have finished in the points. He had pushed ahead of better-resourced teams including Renault, BAR, Jaguar, and Williams, using a combination of pace, fitness management, and the specific chaos of Australian opening laps. Giancarlo Minardi cried on the pit wall. He had watched his team score one of its best-ever results in one of the sport's most unpredictable races.
2006–2009: Red Bull Takes Over, Becomes a Qualifying Threat
Red Bull's acquisition gave the Faenza team financial stability, the Red Bull driver development pipeline, and eventually Honda engine partnership. The team was renamed Toro Rosso — Italian for Red Bull, which the English-speaking press found amusing for years. The drivers who came through were the story: Vettel joined in 2007 from BMW Sauber, age 19. The 2008 Monza race, run in wet conditions, saw Vettel lead from pole to flag — the youngest race winner in Formula One history at 21 years and 73 days. Räikkönen's record had lasted 12 years. Vettel's lasted three (Verstappen broke it in 2016).
2010–2018: The Revolving Door
The Toro Rosso years became defined by the pattern: discover a driver, develop them for two or three seasons, promote them to Red Bull Racing or sell them to a rival. Ricciardo came through. Kvyat was promoted and then returned. Sainz was loaned to Renault. Gasly was promoted to Red Bull Racing, struggled, returned to Toro Rosso, and then won at Monza as AlphaTauri in 2020. The system produced talent — it was not always kind to the talent it produced.
2020–present: Gasly's Win and the Rebrand Cycle
Pierre Gasly's 2020 Monza win was unexpected and entirely deserved. He had been demoted from Red Bull Racing the previous year following results that were more about car fit than driver ability. His Monza win — capitalising on Hamilton's pit-lane penalty at a safety car restart — was the kind of result that happens when a fast driver in a competitive midfield car gets a clean opportunity. The rebrand to AlphaTauri for 2020 and then to RB for 2024 tracked the naming conventions of Red Bull's commercial priorities. The team in Faenza remained the same team it had been since 1985.
The team runs Red Bull-adjacent technology. The engineering in Faenza is real — it's just not independent of Milton Keynes.
2008
STR3 Monza — The Youngest Winner
The Toro Rosso STR3 used a Ferrari engine under Red Bull's partnership. At Monza in rain, on a circuit where raw power and slipstreaming matter most, Vettel qualified on pole and led every lap. The car was the same specification as the competition it had been racing against for most of the season. The conditions amplified his advantage. It was one of those races where everything aligned — weather, circuit, driver quality — at exactly the right moment.
2020
AT01 Monza — Gasly's Opportunity
Pierre Gasly's 2020 Monza win came after Lewis Hamilton received a drive-through penalty for a pit entry violation under a safety car period, dropping to sixth. Gasly was running second and inherited the lead. He held off Sainz over the final laps in the AlphaTauri AT01. The car was not championship-level; the opportunity was. Gasly converted it with precision.
The Kvyat-Verstappen-Kvyat driver swap of 2016 remains the most discussed driver management decision in Red Bull's history.
2016
The Kvyat-Verstappen Driver Carousel
Daniil Kvyat was promoted to Red Bull Racing from Toro Rosso for 2015. After two incidents involving Sebastian Vettel at the Russian Grand Prix in 2016 — incidents Kvyat caused, directly — Red Bull's management team made a decision during the Chinese Grand Prix weekend. Verstappen, 18, was promoted to Red Bull Racing. Kvyat was demoted back to Toro Rosso. The announcement was made before qualifying in Shanghai. Kvyat had to race that weekend knowing he was being moved. He subsequently improved, was released from the Red Bull programme entirely in 2017, returned as a reserve, drove for AlphaTauri in 2019-2020, and left. The speed and finality of the original demotion became the defining example of Red Bull's driver management approach.
2022
Gasly's Request to Leave
Pierre Gasly spent four years requesting a move from AlphaTauri to Red Bull Racing that was not forthcoming. His Monza 2020 win was the clearest statement of his quality; Red Bull's position was that Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez were the appropriate line-up. After the 2022 season, Gasly was released to Alpine — an unusual departure for a driver whose Red Bull contract would normally have restricted his options. The relationship had clearly reached its conclusion.
The Paddock Breakdown
Barry · Gary · KatGary Finch
Two wins, zero championships. But the downstream value of the drivers developed — 4+ championships — makes this the best ROI on the grid.
The Red Bull junior team model is statistically the most productive driver development programme in Formula One. I've calculated the downstream value: Vettel's four championships, Ricciardo's wins, Sainz's Ferrari performances, Gasly's independent career — all produced at a fraction of the cost of maintaining those drivers at the senior team. The team in Faenza has never won a championship but they've been involved in approximately 12 of them in supporting roles. That's a return on investment that doesn't show up in the constructor standings but absolutely shows up in Red Bull's strategic position in the sport.
Kat Moreno
The engineering in Faenza is more independent than people assume. They're not just copying Milton Keynes.
There's a misconception that RB is just a Red Bull Racing satellite with different livery. The reality is more interesting: the team in Faenza designs its own chassis, conducts its own aerodynamic development, and makes its own technical decisions within the constraints of the Red Bull power unit and gearbox. The correlation to Red Bull Racing's car concept exists — same PU, shared philosophy — but the implementations diverge at the detail level. What I find genuinely interesting is the data that comes back from running different conceptual approaches on the same power unit and comparing it with what Red Bull proper has found. That comparative data has value that isn't visible in the race results.