Franz Tost has criticised AlphaTauri’s Formula 1 engineers, admitting that he has lost trust in them amid its slow start to the 2023 season.
After pre-season testing, AlphaTauri was tipped to be one of the slowest teams in the field for the upcoming campaign.
Drag issues were apparent during the opening race weekend of the year in Bahrain, where it failed to walk away with points in the bag.
Tost says that he was anticipating that AlphaTauri would start the current campaign in a much stronger fashion.
“Unfortunately I think it’s currently the performance level of the car, because we expected a much better car,” Tost said.
“We struggled in Bahrain, but it looks a little bit different here [in Saudi Arabia]. I hope that at least we’re with one car in qualifying three, but we have to do a lot of things to make the car faster.
“Especially on the aerodynamics side, there are different programmes going on and the engineers tell me that we make some good progress.
“But I don’t trust them anymore. I just want to see the lap time because this is the only thing which counts.”
“During the winter months they told me ‘the car is fantastic, we are making big progress’ then we come to Bahrain we are nowhere. What should I say?”
When asked whether his comments were an act of ‘tough love’, Tost added: “I don’t care about that, I just want to see a fast car whether tough or not. I simply don’t care.”
AlphaTauri currently sits eighth in the standings after the opening round, but Tost says that a lack of downforce is hurting it.
“[There is] not enough downforce, therefore the car is unstable under braking, overheating the rear tires, washing out at the apex, traction, everything what you need to do a good lap time,” said Tost.
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