Some teams just changed their name, others disappeared completely: which Formula 1 brands have disappeared since 2000
Alfa Romeo, Jordan, and Toyota: These three names have long since disappeared from Formula 1—for very different reasons.
Which Formula 1 teams have changed their names since 2000—and why.
In the case of Alfa Romeo, it was purely a marketing move: the Italian manufacturer became the title sponsor of the Sauber team in 2018 and promoted its brand in Formula 1 without fielding its own cars. When the partnership expired, Alfa Romeo disappeared again – and Sauber returned as the team name.
The Swiss racing team is a good example of how changeable team names can be in Formula 1. From 2006 to 2009, Sauber competed as the BMW Sauber factory team before the German car manufacturer surprisingly withdrew and Sauber became a private team again.
Like Sauber, Jordan also entered Formula 1 in the 1990s. Eddie Jordan’s racing team competed under its original name until 2005, when it was sold and passed around several times in the following years. Today, the team is known as Aston Martin, but it has had many other names over the past two decades.
The case of Toyota is different again: the Japanese car manufacturer ended its Formula 1 project during the global economic crisis of the late 2000s – without achieving the desired success. In eight years, Toyota failed to win a single race, let alone the world championship title.
The Toyota team was not sold, it simply disappeared from the scene – along with the Formula 1 cars that had already been completed for 2010. There were various interested parties for these, but in the end the cars remained in the garage and never took part in a Formula 1 race.