Red Bull’s strangest decisions often make more sense when viewed through the broader economy of attention. Formula 1 is a sport, but it is also a storytelling machine, and nothing fuels that machine like an improbable name attached to a major seat.
By naming Ben East, Red Bull has generated debate that cuts across performance, talent identification, sim racing and the team’s own internal ruthlessness. That is not a side effect. It is part of the outcome.
If the move was designed purely to entertain, it has succeeded already. If it was designed to uncover something unusual in the data, that judgment will take longer. Either way, Red Bull has once again made itself impossible to ignore.
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