What if Red Bull solved its second-car problem with a paint job?

The saga surrounding Yuki Tsunoda’s promotion and Liam Lawson’s demotion to Racing Bulls is thus: for years now, round and thru Max Verstappen’s a number of world titles, Pink Bull has been a one-car Method 1 squad.

Since Daniel Ricciardo’s exit from the height of his F1 profession in 2018, Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon, Sergio Perez and now Lawson have tried and failed to deal with driving a automotive principally organized to swimsuit the uber-pointy front-end choice of Max Verstappen throughout the Pink Bull storage. That’s via two completely different design guidelines eras.

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Resplendent in one-off white, Tsunoda will begin his try to keep away from becoming a member of that record at this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix.

However, from the seriousness of Perez’s incapacity to match Verstappen’s factors hauls in 2021 and 2024 costing Pink Bull two constructors’ championships, a wry commentary from inside the F1 paddock final outing on the Chinese language GP hinted there could be a fast repair for Christian Horner’s squad.

Given Verstappen was suggesting in Shanghai that the Racing Bulls automotive is “simpler to drive than ours”, then why wouldn’t an answer be to color a VCARB 02 to run within the chosen colors of the second Pink Bull?

Liam Lawson, Pink Bull Racing, Isack Hadjar, RB F1 Workforce

Photograph by: Pink Bull Content material Pool

The upsides for Pink Bull can be clear.

It may think about fettling the RB21 to maintain giving Verstappen the sturdy entrance finish he desires however scale back the confidence-sapping rear finish snaps that even his prodigious expertise can’t tame after they randomly strike.

On the identical time, whoever is deigned to be Verstappen’s team-mate on any given weekend – he’s about to have a 3rd in simply 4 grands prix, since Abu Dhabi final 12 months – would get to drive the extra compliant Racing Bulls package deal, with its barely larger trip peak normally making it simpler to drive.

There’s even historic F1 examples of groups fielding very completely different automotive specs – from the low- and high-downforce Pink Bull RB20 packages Perez and Verstappen have been respectively operating finally 12 months’s Hungarian GP, to McLaren getting into its common M7A automobiles (organized in three completely different specs) in addition to the one-off four-wheel drive M9A on the 1969 British GP.

Clearly, this being the relentlessly actual trendy world, Pink Bull’s F1 rivals would object to such a gambit because the championship has lengthy moved on from this being allowed.

They’d have the authorized foundation to cease this plan in its tracks (which doesn’t cease it being an intriguing dialogue in a sphere as intricate and interesting as motorsport).

The principle rule such an try would fall afoul of is Article 17.3 (and its many sub-categories) of F1’s technical rules, which covers “Listed Workforce Elements” (LTC). This limits groups to including particular components (together with all aerodynamic surfaces) to their automobiles for in-competition use that they’ve designed themselves.

Then there may be additionally rule Article 17.5 on Transferable Elements (TRC), which covers components that groups can construct after which promote to others.

That is significantly pertinent to the Pink Bull/Racing Bulls scenario given they share many mechanical components – together with suspension for each entrance and rear axles, plus gearboxes.

Max Verstappen, Pink Bull Racing, Isack Hadjar, RB F1 Workforce

Photograph by: Pink Bull Content material Pool

F1’s technical guidelines additionally embody Normal Provide Elements (SSC) and Open Supply Elements (OSC) components provide that cowl particular (and usually not performance-influencing) parts of automobiles which are outsourced in manufacturing phrases to suppliers. This could embody different squads.

Though such guidelines have been tweaked through the years – primarily round Haas’s arrival as an F1 competitor utilizing as many listed components produced by Ferrari as permitted again in 2016 – Pink Bull is definitely the primary motive why guidelines that ban buyer automobiles exist within the first place.

Since late 2005, Pink Bull has owned each its eponymous squad and its many-named junior staff, which led to the complicated outlawing of two groups operating near-identical designs again in 2010.

As a kicker, F1’s guidelines (Article 17.2.4 and 17.2.6 of the 2025 technical rules) even prohibit Pink Bull transferring workers between its two squads to share any concepts.

And Pink Bull couldn’t even use photos, scans or video footage to copy Racing Bulls’s compliant package deal for one automotive – it must deplete its personal assets conducting the analysis behind such designs.

In the associated fee cap period, that’s tougher than ever and, actually, a headache Pink Bull may do with out because it continues its self-set process of offering Verstappen with a automotive to swimsuit his genius wants that doesn’t destroy the probabilities of his team-mate. And, proper now, that doesn’t even add as much as the quickest automotive for only one Pink Bull driver…