Retiring AlphaTauri Formula 1 boss Franz Tost has explained how an overhaul of the team’s aerodynamics department triggered its turnaround in the 2023 season.
After notching the highest points tally in its history in 2021, AlphaTauri slumped down to ninth place upon the sport’s return to ground effect machinery at the start of last year.
The Faenza squad’s downward plight continued into this campaign as it only scored five points across the first 17 rounds, leaving it rooted to the foot of the standings.
A challenging opening weekend in Bahrain with its brand-new 2023 challenger saw Tost declare ahead of the following grand prix that he had lost trust in the side’s engineers.
However, a raft of upgrades to its AT04 car in the closing months propelled AlphaTauri into a position where it accumulated 20 points to rise to eighth position by the season’s end.
Tost reveals that he was aware the Red Bull-owned outfit was on the wrong path at the beginning of 2022 but he needed new personnel to implement the changes needed.
When asked why AlphaTauri wasn’t able to replicate its late-season progress earlier in this regulation cycle, Tost said: “Because the wrong people were in the wrong place.”
“We brought in new people. I realised last year, in March/April that from the aero side we were not going in the right direction. We had a wrong philosophy.
“It’s always difficult to convince engineers to go in another direction because they will never adapt this. Therefore it’s better to bring other people in. This is what we did.
“But until these people can work, you wait a year. And this was the problem which we had, that they could start only in April this year although we recognised that we had problems last year already.”
It has been confirmed that the team, which will be rebranded ahead of 2024, has forged closer ties with Red Bull and will utilise more car parts from the reigning champions.
Tost, who is departing the team boss role he has held since 2006 at the end of the year, divulged that AlphaTauri is still recruiting as it bids to advance up the order next year.
“The team still is not fully recruited, they’re still coming, some other aerodynamic people and why I was pushing so much to bring the upgrades is to get an understanding whether this new group goes in the right direction, on philosophy, because otherwise also next year would have been a problem,” he explained.
“And this is what I wanted to prevent under all circumstances.
“And the reason why everything came together in the second half of the year was simply because we didn’t have these new people beforehand,” Tost concluded.
