Laurent Mekis: We are convinced that the team is on the right track

      The Racing Bulls team, formerly known as Toro Rosso, AlphaTauri and Visa RB, is preparing for the new season and its manager is convinced it is "on the right track".

      It still has two bases - one in Faenza, the other in Milton Keynes, next door to the headquarters of Red Bull Racing, but Laurent Mekis, who heads the Italian team, believes that this is a definite plus: "We practice a free approach in terms of the place of residence of our specialists: for example, one of our race engineers lives in England, the second - in Italy. We want to have the opportunity to invite the best talent, both from continental Europe and from the UK." Close technological ties with Red Bull Racing remain one of the basic principles laid down in the plans for the further development of the team. "In terms of interaction not much changes: we still can not share with Red Bull 100% of our information, because it would be contrary to the regulations - continued Mekis. - But we are happy to do so to the extent that we can. Our goal is to achieve that the car worked on the track more stable than last year, and we are confident that we have sorted out the difficulties that did not allow to do this last season. However, I would not like to say that we have managed to solve all the problems, but even if we expect that the beginning of the season may be difficult for us, we are convinced that the team is on the right track, and we will be able to achieve significant improvements ".

      The place of Liam Lawson, who has moved to Red Bull Racing, has been taken by 20-year-old French driver Isaac Hajar, last year's Formula 2 vice-champion. "I've worked my way up to Formula 1 because I've really fought and elbowed my rivals," said the Racing Bulls debutant. - I'm excited to take on a new challenge and hungry for success. I understand that I will have to give the maximum, but at the same time I will try to spend the race bright!" What Hajar meant, and how he will show himself against the experienced already Yuki Tsunoda, we will know very soon. Peter Bayer, the Executive Director of the team, at today's press conference in London explained the reason for another change of name: "Everyone knows that we are part of the universe of Red Bull. From the very beginning we had the idea that the team should be called Racing Bulls, but then we went a different way. We were happy that we were joined by major sponsors such as Visa, which will continue to work with us this year, but last season it became clear that everyone was difficult to call us just the abbreviation RB, so we decided to return to the original idea".