From having fought until the last race of 2021 for the fifth position in the constructors’ classification to having suddenly plunged into the role of eighth force in the championship, the pace was too short for the‘AlphaTauri. The team from Faenza, positive surprise in the middle group ‘package’ during the last two seasons, in the first part of the 2022 vintage was the great disappointment of the championship. In fact, the Italian team has not been able to interpret the new technical regulations in the best possible way and, despite some good results obtained in qualifying, has often failed the races. In fact, after 13 GPs, the team headed by Franz Tost it is only eighth among the manufacturers, even surpassed by Alfa Romeo and Haas. A disappointment that the Austrian manager himself did not try to hide.
Interviewed by the site RacingNews365, Tost explained how it was above all reliability that was lacking in the two AT03s. Pierre Gasly And Yuki Tsunoda so far this season they have managed three and two retirements respectively, of which only that of the Japanese in France was an accident unrelated to car problems. “The first half of the season did not bring what we expected – explained the 66-year-old Austrian executive – we had a lot of problems and the reliability was not as expected. Everything went smoothly during the Barcelona and Bahrain tests, but during the first race Pierre’s car battery caught fire. That was the number one fault. We had to replace the power unit and battery immediately. So it wasn’t a good start to the season. And then in the second race there was a problem for Yuki with the transmission“.
However, Tost does not blame these troubles directly on the team. “None of these breakdowns had anything to do with the team – has explained – at least not at an operational level, because they were only parts that had been supplied to us “. Overall, the AlphaTauri has not managed to collect even a point in the last five races preceding the summer break. A very disappointing result, commented quite clearly by the team principal himself: “In summary I would say that in the first part of the season we did not manage to live up to expectations“.
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