Is VisaToroCashGrabAlphaRossoF1 still marketed as a junior team?

[virtualbalboa]

"Junior" would suggest that it is there to develop prospects, but they've had DannyRic in a car for a year and a half at the end of his career while Yuki is, well, Yuki. He's Takuma Sato except shorter, never podiumed, and clearly never going to progress to the Red Bull seat. Are they still explicitly a "junior team" or are they more or less just admitting now that it is Red Bull's minor league squad, intended to fulfill the need of 20 starters at races until they can divest of it to a dictator?

 

[FLRacingFan]

The preferred nomenclature since 2020 has been ‘sister team’. If it were up to Helmut Marko it would more resemble its traditional makeup as a true junior team, but Horny and the Thai side of ownership mostly dictate operations now and seemingly don’t care about anything other than power and money. If you don’t see either Liam Lawson or Isack Hadjar at Toro Rosso in 2025 it’d be the final nail in the coffin for the team as a stepping stone operation.

 

[donthaveanickname]

He's Takuma Sato except shorter, never podiumed, and clearly never going to progress to the Red Bull seat.

He's not going to Red Bull because they don't want him for whatever reason. His results from the last two seasons would have earned him a promotion. He hasn't podiumed but the Toro Rosso wasn't really a car you could podium in during the last four seasons.

I'd argue it hasn't been a junior team since they took Kvyat back in with no perspective of ever making it back to the main team. Hartley also wasn't a junior driver back in 2018.