Welcome Drivers!

This post is a continuation of the Constructor Deep Dive series we are currently working through. If you haven’t already, check out the deep dives that we have already done below.

• Williams Racing (Source)

Next on the list is AlphaTauri who finished 9th in the Constructors championship in 2022.

AlphaTauri 2022 Performance

It was an extremely frustrating and disappointing season for AlphaTauri. They were coming off of a season where they finished P6 in the constructors and showed great promise in being competitive in 2022. Unfortunately they were tripped up by the new regulations and they swung and missed on their development.

AlphaTauri finished with 35 points in 2022, just two points behind Haas in P8. Pierre Gasly, who has left the team for Alpine in 2023, led the team with 23 points to his name. Yuki Tsunoda contributed the remaining 12 points. This was a far cry from the 2021 season where they were able to score 142 points.

AlphaTauri got off to a decent start in 2022. 27 of their 35 points came in the first 8 races of the season. Then it seems like their performance fell off a cliff. It was primarily due to a mix of unreliability and some strategy errors that led to their performance drop. In addition to those issues, they did not have consistent aerodynamic development throughout the year which led to faltering aero upgrades leaving them unable to compete with other teams. At one point during the season, Tsunoda had a 12 race points drought. He was only able to muster a single point in the final 16 races of the season.

It was a unacceptable season for the sister team to Red Bull. They struggled adapting to the new ground-effect regulations and are now behind the ball when compared to teams like Alfa Romeo, Mclaren and Alpine. They likely need to do an extensive overhaul of their car in order to compete in the midfield again. Their drivers for the next year are still unproven which doesn’t help their cause. They must improve their car quickly to give their drivers confidence.

Looking Ahead to 2023

Leadership, Management & Partnerships

Despite the disappointing season for AlphaTauri their management team stayed intact. Franz Tost continues to be the team principal. He has been in that position since the 2005 season when they went by Torro Rosso. Being the sister team to Red Bull, they maintain a close relationship with RB leadership and in most cases take their marching orders from them. AlphaTauri’s engine supplier is Red Bull Powertrains further entrenching the relationship.

Jody Eggington, AlphaTauri’s Technical Director, admitted that the team had underperformed in 2022 and reiterated that it was something they intend to put right this year. He took ownership of the teams failures and is working hard to correct them. He went on to say that their goal is to be competing in the top 5 of the constructors championship. He said they would have to work a bit harder and more efficiently to achieve these goals.

The 2023 season will be a critical year for AlphaTauri. They are fully committed to getting back to the level they were in 2020 and 2021. They plan on going back to their old ways including a different strategy on they way the introduce upgrades throughout the season.

Development

From all of the reports we have seen the AlphaTauri AT04 will be significantly different than the AT03 model from 2022. In years past, AlphaTauri had leveraged a lot of parts from Red Bull’s transferable parts list. This means they were able to take the senior team’s suspension, gearbox and hydraulics. While they are planning on using some Red Bull parts this year, it will reportedly be less than in previous seasons.

Sounds good right? Red Bull made an amazing car and AlphaTauri should have capitalized on sharing the same parts. The problem is when a team takes these parts it can be very limiting on their freedom to design and develop their own car. Rather than having parts that are specifically designed for their car, AlphaTauri had to design the chassis and other things around the parts that they have taken from Red Bull. This is a big issue when massive regulation changes take place.

For the development of the AT04, AlphaTauri is looking to use less Red Bull parts. This will give them a lot more flexibility when designing and developing the car. AlphaTauri chief engineer Jonathan Eddolls is quoted saying they would, “like to define our aerodynamics based on certain parts underneath it but if we take components from [Red Bull], we don’t get information on the final design until very late.” He goes on to mention that they have gained a lot of good experience with the new cars and will be able to save weight on the car by not needing certain components to be as flexible.

Eggington spoke on the development of the AT04 saying that they chassis will be changed due to the new regulations surrounding the roll structural requirements. There will also be some tweaks made to enhance aerodynamic opportunities. One of these opportunities is potentially moving the front suspension forward on the car.

AlphaTauri has their AT04 launch scheduled for February 11th and we will hopefully get more insight on the design changes then.

Drivers

Both of AlphaTauri’s drivers are unproven in F1. Yuki Tsunoda will be expected to be the lead horse with rookie Nick de Vries teaming up with the Japanese driver now that Pierre Gasly has left the team. Both drivers will need to quickly establish themselves and build their confidence up in order to compete with the midfield.

Yuki Tsunoda will be looking to come back strong after a tough season in 2022. While the car was not competitive toward the back half of the season he did not perform well himself either. He was outscored by Gasly 7 points to 1 in the final 16 races of the season. It is reported that he has fixed his work ethic but that has not translated to on track performance yet. This is a critical year for Tsunoda and if he does not improve it’s likely his F1 future will be in doubt.

Nick de Vries is joining the team after his performance in Monza last year. Multiple teams were in the running and his relationship with Max Verstappen pushed him to joining the Red Bull sister team. The 27 year old rookie showed talent in his F1 debut but it is difficult to predict how talented he really is. We will need more than a single race to determine if he will be a long term fit for AlphaTauri.

We do see the potential of de Vries outperforming Tsunoda in 2023. Tsunoda has not been overly impressive in his two years as an F1 driver. He struggled with maturity issues in his first season and performed poorly last season. If de Vries is as talented as teams think he is then he could have immediate success at AlphaTauri.

2023 Predictions

We are optimistic with AlphaTauri improving to the midfield this year. It will not be an easy task with Aston Martin and Haas showing improvement as well. I think using less parts from Red Bull is a good thing overall. It puts the ownership on themselves and they can get more creative with their own designs.

We think last year was an anomaly and AlphaTauri will return to competing with the midfield. We expect they will make significant progress on their development and have the potential to finish as high as P5. In reality we think P6 or P7 is where they will ultimately end up.

Upcoming Posts and Reader Feedback

Our next post will be a continuation of the deep dives into each team for their 2023 outlook. We will try to get out one a day considering we have limited time before the pre-season testing starts in late February.

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