15/12/2023
NEWS STORY
No surprises as the FIA confirms the 2024 entry list, other than Red Bull keeping the lid on the new name for AlphaTauri.
The drivers that line up on the grid in Bahrain on 2 March next year will be the same 20 that raced in Abu Dhabi, and other than a tweak to Aston Martin's name and the return of Sauber ahead of Audi's entry in 2026, fans were keen to see the new identity for AlphaTauri revealed following months of speculation over the Faenza outfit's new name.
However, Red Bull has opted to keen us guessing and the official entry list still sees Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda at the wheel of RBPT powered AlphaTauris.
While it is anticipated that the Faenza team's livery will be similar to that sported in Abu Dhabi, speaking last month team boss Peter Bayer was giving little away.
"The identity will be generic," he told Motorsport.com. "The identity is what Toro Rosso would have been, and it's moving closer to the Red Bull family again. But then it will appear with the naming rights partners.
"We will change the company name, we will change identity, logo, everything, a complete relaunch, complete rebrand," he added. "The name of the team, the identity, has been decided by the shareholders. And I need to carry it with me without being able to share, which is very difficult!"
Though unable to share the new team name he was able to confirm that the sport's newfound popularity in the US has brought new American sponsors on board.
"We're on a good trajectory," he said. "And because we have such good traction in the US at the moment, we found these two companies who like each other.
"We had a very, very good meeting with these two big new partners. And they understood each other really well. They sort of mingled immediately.
"We talked about when do we announce it? What do we do? And we said look, this is what usually happens, and we have the FIA entry form and we have the livery presentation. And then they had ideas.
"They started brainstorming so much that I got scared, actually! They have a couple of very big ideas. They're thinking big, bigger than we would probably have dared to think."
While the former Alfa Romeo team will run as Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber this year, Cognizant is no longer title sponsor at Aston Martin as the Silverstone-based outfit becomes Aston Martin Aramco.
| No. | Driver | Team | Car |
| 1 | Max Verstappen | Oracle Red Bull Racing | Red Bull-Honda RBPT |
| 11 | Sergio Perez | Oracle Red Bull Racing | Red Bull-Honda RBPT |
| 63 | George Russell | Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team | Mercedes |
| 44 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team | Mercedes |
| 16 | Charles Leclerc | Scuderia Ferrari | Ferrari |
| 55 | Carlos Sainz | Scuderia Ferrari | Ferrari |
| 81 | Oscar Piastri | McLaren Formula 1 Team | McLaren-Mercedes |
| 4 | Lando Norris | McLaren Formula 1 Team | McLaren-Mercedes |
| 18 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin Aramco Formula F1 Team | Aston Martin Aramco-Mercedes |
| 14 | Fernando Alonso | Aston Martin Aramco Formula F1 Team | Aston Martin Aramco-Mercedes |
| 31 | Esteban Ocon | BWT Alpine F1 Team | Alpine-Renault |
| 10 | Pierre Gasly | BWT Alpine F1 Team | Alpine-Renault |
| 23 | Alexander Albon | Williams Racing | Williams-Mercedes |
| 2 | Logan Sargeant | Williams Racing | Williams-Mercedes |
| 21 | Daniel Ricciardo | Scuderia AlphaTauri RB | RB-RBPT |
| 22 | Yuki Tsunoda | Scuderia AlphaTauri RB | RB-RBPT |
| 77 | Valtteri Bottas | Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber | Kick Sauber-Ferrari |
| 24 | Zhou Guanyu | Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber | Kick Sauber-Ferrari |
| 20 | Kevin Magnussen | MoneyGram Haas F1 Team | Haas-Ferrari |
| 27 | Nico Hulkenberg | MoneyGram Haas F1 Team | Haas-Ferrari |