AlphaTauri no longer want to be known as just a 'Rookie team'

Peter Bayer, CEO of AlphaTauri's Formula 1 team, told autosport.com that the team's focus has changed and that they no longer want to be known as the team that prepares rookies for the big teams. They want to perform with an experienced driver in combination with a younger driver.

With Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda, the team already has over 17 seasons of racing experience under their belt, a completely different approach compared to 2015. Back then, Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz were new to the top class of motorsport. Why is that? According to Bayer, it is down to a few things. A new name, new potential sponsors from the US and more.

AlphaTauri needs to become competitive

CEO Bayer says the following: "The shareholders, when they were resharpening things, they also said, 'we want you to be competitive. Franz always says, and honestly in the meantime I agree 100%, that a young driver needs three years to be sort of ready for F1." He points out that when you have a young driver in the car it takes much more time to perform. "I understood that the moment we put a young driver into the car. Because what's happening is it's actually a change of flow of information, whilst with an experienced driver like Daniel it's him feeding the engineer, who is feeding the operations room, who are then again coming back with stuff."