Recently departed AlphaTauri Formula 1 boss Franz Tost has clarified comments from earlier in the year when he admitted he had lost faith in the team’s engineers.
After notching the highest points tally in the side’s history in 2021, AlphaTauri slumped back to ninth place upon the overhaul to the sport’s technical regulations last season.
The Faenza squad’s fortunes got worse this campaign as it scored only five points across the first 17 rounds of the campaign, leaving it rooted to the bottom of the championship.
Following a challenging opening weekend in Bahrain that saw it blighted by a downforce deficit against its midfield rivals, Tost conceded he no longer trusted the group.
“Especially on the aerodynamics side, there are different programmes going on and the engineers tell me that we make some good progress,” Tost issued back in March.
“But I don’t trust them anymore. I just want to see the lap time because this is the only thing which counts.”
However, a series of upgrades to its AT04 car in the closing stages enabled AlphaTauri to accrue 20 points in the last five rounds to rise up to eighth place by the season’s end.
Ahead of overseeing his final race at the helm, Tost revisited the episode, detailing that the team’s late resurgence was down to overhauling its technical department.
“I must tell you the background story. Our car last year was not competitive,” Tost told F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast.
“Then I said we have to do something, because I cannot accept that we are rolling around in the back of the field, I want to be at least in the front part of the midfield.
“‘Yeah, yeah. We are working very hard and we have solutions. We know exactly what we have to do.’
“I visited them at the aero department. They told me figures and they said ‘the car will be fantastic. Really good performance, very good figures in CFT, as well as in the wind tunnel, and blah blah blah.’
“Then we came to Bahrain and I did not need to wait for the race. I knew already after the test that we are nowhere.
“Then I got upset and I said to them, ‘what’s going on?’
“‘Oh, you know, there’s coming an upgrade.’ I said, ‘I don’t care about an upgrade. This car must perform well.’
“Then, in your press conference, I was asked about this and I said, ‘I don’t trust them anymore.’
“If I don’t trust anymore the people, then they are out. This was the case. We changed them and brought in some new people, so we have now hopefully a good team in the aero department.
“I must say, all the upgrades they brought this year so far worked acceptably.”
Tost had held the team boss post since Red Bull acquired the entry from the 2006 season, but announced in April that he had opted to step down at the end of this year.
The Austrian, 67, will be directly replaced by ex-Ferrari Racing Director Laurent Mekies, while the Italian outfit also hired Peter Bayer earlier this year to become the side’s CEO.
With the team to be rebranded once again amid an increased collaboration with Red Bull from 2024, Tost is convinced the duo will be capable of taking it to “another level”.
“First of all, Peter is with us since June and I think that we are working together very closely,” Tost said. “He understands the team now much better and he has got a lot of experience. He knows Formula 1.
“Laurent Mekies anyway was working with us, he knows the team from the past and I think that these two people are absolutely the right people to take over the team.
“I expect that they will bring the team to another level because both of them have a lot of experience. Both of them know Formula 1 and I’m convinced that they will do a very good job.”
