Red Bull at the root revival AlphaTauri: 'Big step forward'

It seemed to be a hopeless season for AlphaTauri. Yet in the end, the Italian team managed to finish in eighth place in the constructors' world championship, mainly thanks to a clever final sprint. This was possible because the cars of Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo received constant (successful) updates in recent months.

Guillaume Dezoteux is therefore proud of the way AlphaTauri has managed to recover. "Yeah, I mean, it's nice. We started the season a long way off, on the back foot, so there was plenty to find," the Head Vehicle Performance stated to GPblog and other media. "But I think it's fair to say that the factories have done a really good job at identifying the weaknesses of that car and then working hard to try to address those. Part of the problem is understanding the weaknesses, and then I think they did a very good job of figuring that out."

Influence of Red Bull Racing is important

In recent races, AlphaTauri has been able to have the same rear suspension as the Red Bulls. The Italian team will also use this suspension in 2024. This was decided in part because Red Bull often does not decide what parts will look like until the last minute. For a customer team like AlphaTauri, it is difficult to anticipate this.

"That's one of the issues," Dezoteux acknowledged. "Obviously, they're very aggressive with how they develop, and they release their parts late because they want to maximise the performance of their car, clearly. Then for us, sometimes to take something like a suspension so late, it's integral to the car, the package. Sometimes, yes, it's very difficult then to add it to your car and yield an optimum package in such a short space of time."

AlphaTauri is nonetheless very dependent on Red Bull in the way the team can further develop its car. "Because we take their parts and we fit them to our car and we develop around it. As I say, I think the key point is that aerodynamically that's where the biggest progress has been made. For sure, the suspension has been a step."