Honda engineer reflects on Alpha Tauri's development in 2020

2020 was a positive year for AlphaTauri, especially with Pierre Gasly's victory at Monza. Masamitsu Motohashi, Honda's top engineer on the Alpha Tauri team, looks back on the past year.

Luck and timing important in Formula 1

Motohashi recognizes that luck played a role in the result. "Seen over a whole weekend, our drivers perform pretty much the same, the difference is in timing and luck. Kvyat often ended further back because something happened," Motohashi said in an interview with AutosportWeb.

He continued: "The performance of the car has visibly improved, which is partly due to the development of the team. Especially on Fridays and Saturdays, in clean air, the car is doing well. In the race we are usually in the DRS train and the result depends on tire management and timing of the safety car."

"I'm looking forward to 2021, and I'm certainly not pessimistic about that. The car's performance is improving, so I'm looking forward to seeing how we do next year," he concluded.