Visa Cash App RB (V-CARB) team received a lot of attention heading into the 2024 season. This had nothing to do with the team’s performance or news about their drivers or other senior employees. Instead, the team’s peculiar name turned a lot heads in the F1 community. Former Minardi boss Paul Stoddart, whose team was initially bought out by Red Bull and renamed to Toro Rosso, has seemingly given the Austrian company the perfect solution to name their sister side.
When asked about the V-CARB team name in a recent interview with nl.motorsport.com, Stoddart replied, “Simple, just call them Minardi! At least that’s what I call the team“.
The Australian businessman then added that he liked the Toro Rosso name as well. Since Toro Rosso simply means Red Bull in Italian, the Austrian company named their sister team the same, being based out of Faenza in Italy.
Although Red Bull used the Toro Rosso name for their sister team for the longest time (2006-19), they changed it to AlphaTauri in 2020 for sponsorship reasons. Similarly in 2024, the outfit came to be known as Visa Cash App RB or simply V-CARB.
Visa refers to the American payment card company and Cash App refers to a payment service company in the UK and the US. Meanwhile, RB most likely indicates that Red Bull owns the team, although the team hasn’t made any official statement about the same.
How is Visa Cash App RB performing in 2024?
After receiving most of the media’s attention for the team’s name change, V-CARB will now hope to make headlines for their performances on the track. They seem to have done just that after the first three races as Yuki Tsunoda has already scored 6 valuable points for the team, thanks to his P7 finish in Melbourne two weeks ago.
On the other hand, Daniel Ricciardo is still struggling and remains without any points three races into the season. However, the early signs seem to suggest that V-CARB can have a strong 2024 season and could finish after the top five teams (Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes, and Aston Martin).
Paul Stoddart also believes that V-CARB will be a solid contender in the midfield this season. “I think they will compete substantially in midfield this year. I really think so,” said Stoddart in the same interview.
If V-CARB are able to finish sixth in the championship, they would most likely will be happy with the result, having finished eighth last season.