156 replies to this topic

[FirstnameLastname]

With the rumour that we are soon to have the ‘Visa Cash App RB’ team… what’s the all time worst team name in motorsport?

[Beri]

Until that name has been acknowledged;
- Racing Point
- Techeetah (is it Tech eetah? Te Cheetah?)
- Young BARF Racing (1966 entry at Le Mans)

[RainyAfterlifeDaylight]

RedBull

 

[ensign14]

Dollop Racing.

[P123]

Midland.

[Frood]

A personal favourite is USF Pro 2000 driver Charles Finelli, who enters a few races a year as a privateer under the team name "Fat Boy Racing!". And yes, the exclamation mark is part of the team name.

[1player]

MasterCard Lola

[midgrid]

BS Fabrications

[noikeee]

Super Aguri need a mention

[r4mses]

The acutally-not-Lotus-yet-named-Lotus' 

[BoDarvelle]

Whatever Sauber is going by this year.

[DW46]

Midland.

Do you mean McKernon Motors?

[NikL]

HRT Formula 1 Team

[Mark521]

DSTP (2000 Toyota Atlantic Champion Buddy Rice - Don't Spend the Principal). Actually I like this name but I thought it was worth a mention

[TecnoRacing]

BS Fabrications

Yes, not good

And Sparshott is catchy surname too - Sparshott Racing/FabCo/Engineering or whatnot sounds much cooler.

[Nathan]

Gazoo Racing

[krapmeister]

LKYSUNZ

Edited by krapmeister, 20 January 2024 - 03:39.

[gowebber]

 

 

[PayasYouRace]

About half of this thread should be “best team names”.

[danmills]

Let's be honest here, half the teams are just surnames with the words racing or similar added. Hardly original, we just accept them.

 

Mclaren Racing

Williams Engineering

Ferrari

Benetton

Sauber

Liger

Tyrrell

Minard

Jordan 

etc...

Edited by danmills, 20 January 2024 - 08:23.

[Beri]

Let's be honest here, half the teams are just surnames with the words racing or similar added. Hardly original, we just accept them.
 
Mclaren Racing
Williams Engineering
Ferrari
Benetton
Sauber
Liger
Tyrrell
Minard
Jordan 
etc...

Yet nothing bad is about that. It's about uninspiring names.

[danmills]

Arguably they're all very uninspiring. We're so used to it that anything that's not a surname gets put in the 'ooof' category.

 

Teams come in three groups - the owners surname, a sponsor or absolute nonsense 

 

BAR was pretty bad.

Saubers 2024 name

and 2024 Racing Bulls sponsor blasted monstrosity

[lustigson]

BMW Sauber-Ferrari comes to mind.

[noriaki]

Racing Engineering

[Anja]

Racing Engineering

 

Definitely up there in the "most generic" category. 

[Sterzo]

Racing Engineering

And even more generic when coupled with Tech or Pro. I'm convinced I've attended races where every entrant is Tech Pro Racing, Pro Tech Racing, Race Tech Pro or Race Pro Tech.

[IrvTheSwerve]

We got used to it but ‘Force India’ was a bit naff.

[noikeee]

Let's be honest here, half the teams are just surnames with the words racing or similar added. Hardly original, we just accept them.

Mclaren Racing
Williams Engineering
Ferrari
Benetton
Sauber
Liger
Tyrrell
Minard
Jordan
etc...

But that's sort of organic and pretty natural isn't it. When the owner gives a team his own name he automatically gives it some sort of identity, at least. Unlike things like "Racing Point" which are extraordinarily generic.

To be fair, naming a racing team is surprisingly difficult. Ever tried naming a team even for just a simracing event? For whatever reason there seems to be loads of options when naming football clubs (the "United's", the "FCs", the "Cities", the "Inters" and "Dinamos" and tons of other recurring names even if they have specific meanings that are often bastardised and copied outside of context), whereas no such thing exists for racing teams. Also football clubs are almost always named after places whereas racing teams are not, they're named after guys.

Edited by noikeee, 20 January 2024 - 12:08.

[LolaB0860]

2011 FIA GT had some of the worst team names

- Sumo Power GT
- Exim Bank Team China (Selleslagh Racing Team)
- All-ink.com Munnich Motorsport
- DKR-www.discount.de

Edited by LolaB0860, 20 January 2024 - 12:20.

[Anja]

We got used to it but ‘Force India’ was a bit naff.

 

Still better than Russian Time. 

[danmills]

But that's sort of organic and pretty natural isn't it. When the owner gives a team his own name he automatically gives it some sort of identity, at least. Unlike things like "Racing Point" which are extraordinarily generic.

To be fair, naming a racing team is surprisingly difficult. Ever tried naming a team even for just a simracing event? For whatever reason there seems to be loads of options when naming football clubs (the "United's", the "FCs", the "Cities", the "Inters" and "Dinamos" and tons of other recurring names even if they have specific meanings that are often bastardised and copied outside of context), whereas no such thing exists for racing teams. Also football clubs are almost always named after places whereas racing teams are not, they're named after guys.

 

My fantasy football team have been called FC Electric Willy's and play at the Stade de Vibratotron since 2001. I probably make the naff list 

Edited by danmills, 20 January 2024 - 13:12.

[YoungGun]

Zakspeed

[BlackCat]

Jack Brabham's MRD was kinda surprising for French-speaking people.

[cyclist]

Frikadelli Racing (the team owner owns a meat industry producing amongs other things Frikadellen (meat balls) giving the team its name...)

[HighwayStar]

I see that Force India has already been mentioned, but in my opinion two of the other guises adopted by the former Jordan team had even less inspiring names. Midland was forgettable (although I suppose this was fitting for the team's least memorable incarnation), albeit made worse as the team's name was often abbreviated to MF1, reminiscent of the sofa retailer MFI, while I would consider Racing Point to be the most generic team name in F1 history. Looking at this way makes it seem a shame that the Silverstone team's sole post-Jordan victory was under this lacklustre moniker rather than Spyker or Aston Martin!

[Beri]

BMW Sauber-Ferrari comes to mind.

Misconception. Sauber never fielded cars with Ferrari engines when it was called BMW Sauber.

[Frood]

Misconception. Sauber never fielded cars with Ferrari engines when it was called BMW Sauber.

 

They did in 2010.

[Currahee]

Super Aguri need a mention

No. Its a great name.

[ensign14]

while I would consider Racing Point to be the most generic team name in F1 history.

The Italian ATS translated as Sport and Touring Cars, which could not realistically be more generic.

[Sterzo]

Acronyms turned into words can work, but only if they're Italian, like Fiat and Alfa. But then everything sounds better in Italian than in English, when you consider drivers Beans and Flour won races for Smith.

[lustigson]

Misconception. Sauber never fielded cars with Ferrari engines when it was called BMW Sauber.

 

The FIA beg to differ.

[ensign14]

Acronyms turned into words can work, but only if they're Italian, like Fiat and Alfa. But then everything sounds better in Italian than in English, when you consider drivers Beans and Flour won races for Smith.

So did a Cobbler and a Clark.

[JG]

Eurobrun

[Gravelngrass]

Thing is that if we think a team name based on the sponsor name is bad, most could be interpreted to be pretty bad unless it’s a cool brand name to start with. Or if the team name is a last name, it’ll also depend on whether it’s cool sounding or not.

So, for example, Leyton House Racing sounds cool but X44 Vida Carbon racing doesn’t. Ferrari sounds cool but Andretti Altawkilat does not. But yeah, I feel the modern(ish) need to name everything after the complete name of sponsors has ruined many brands, and especially generic names that should stay neutral such as Premier League or Suzuka Grand Prix. Soon we’ll have Emirates Wimbledon or something…

[B Squared]

MasterCard Lola

Two well established and respected names joined together that did not work out successfully. If they would have been competitive they would not be mentioned in this category.

[InSearchOfThe]

RuSport always sounded odd. As did Marussia.

[BoDarvelle]

Andretti Global

[azza200]

So many racing team names in sportscars have some long names a few examples below from last years Dubai 24 hrs several more like that in the entry list lol 

 

KFC VR46 by BMW M Team WRT

razoon-more than racing

NKPP by HRT Performance

[PayasYouRace]

Acronyms turned into words can work, but only if they're Italian, like Fiat and Alfa. But then everything sounds better in Italian than in English, when you consider drivers Beans and Flour won races for Smith.

Best thing is English when you combine the founders’ names: Cosworth, Marcos, Ilmor, Arrows, March, etc.

[ARTGP]

Porsche Penske Motorsport

Edited by ARTGP, 21 January 2024 - 01:39.