A step forward. This is what all the Formula 1 teams try to do as a minimum to improve what they did in the previous season. Therefore, for anyone who uses this expression, it is easy to fall into banalities heard several times and often disregarded. But there are steps and steps. What AlphaTauri wants to do in the course of 2022 could bring it into the Top 5 of the Constructors’ World Championship.
If in 2021 there were no victories – but a great podium for Pierre Gasly at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix – sixth place in the Constructors’ World Championship already represented a significant improvement compared to 2020, when the Frenchman managed to win at Monza but the team did not go beyond the 7th place in the World Championship for teams.
107 points overall in 2020, which then became 142 last year due to the feeling of a structure, a team in continuous growth, led by a rediscovered rider like Gasly and a Yuki Tsunoda who, at times, showed that he had talent during the course of his first season in Formula 1.
AT03 reliable and has strong points
If the past years, especially in the last 2, AlphaTauri has been able to take advantage of several Red Bull components that led it to close in a good position, 2022 will present completely new cars. Yet the AT03, beyond the elegant livery, has a rear end entirely made in Milton Keynes. It is the same as the much observed and talked about RB18 which only partially showed itself in Barcelona.
An excellent starting point, therefore, but not a guarantee of high-level performance. Many times we have seen center-group cars being able to race with components from winning cars, without however being able to express their potential. That’s why Egginton’s men worked hard: never, since Dietrich Mateschitz took over Minardi, has the Faenza team finished fifth in the Constructors.
Twice sixth (2019 and 2021), several seventh places and then only worse results. That’s why the elusive fifth place escaped by just 13 points last year becomes a real goal. The team is growing, it has plunged into a new era, and there seems to be everything to make the final leap to the noble side of the standings.
In the first 2022 pre-season tests in Barcelona, which took place last week at Montmelò, the AT03 achieved the eighth best time with Pierre Gasly in 1’19 “189, 1 cent behind the seventh time obtained by Sebastian Vettel with Aston Martin AMR22. 15th overall Tsunoda with 1’21 “638 of the first day. Recall that the Japanese was unable to lap on the last day due to an accident caused by Pierre Gasly at the end of the morning session.
However, if the times do not have much value, especially in the first seasonal test session with completely new cars, a more important datum is that of the kilometers covered. In two and a half days the AT03 completed 1,439.9 kilometers, for a total of 4.67 grands prix, less than a grand prix away from the Red Bull which has the same engine and did not have to deal with half a day lost due to an accident.
Gasly-Tsunoda: first positive feelings
Tsunoda, at the end of the first day of testing, immediately underlined the reliability qualities of the new car: “The many kilometers traveled and the changes to the set-up were fundamental and we were able to do everything we had planned. things to fix, but we are happy with how things are going at the moment. The car was really reliable today, we needed to get as much data as possible and we did it. Still five days of testing separate us from the first race, I think that the car is currently pretty fast. “
Despite the accident, Pierre Gasly also said he was happy with the work done and the answers given by the AT03 in the Catalan tests: “It was a productive test and I think it was also very interesting for everyone to be able to see how these new cars behave on the track. From each lap we learned a little more about our car and also in terms of driving I was able to understand how to work to get the most out of it “.
“I think it went well. Obviously, we cannot take any kind of performance into consideration at the moment and, therefore, for this test I focused on myself to be able to give good feedback to the engineers and put the team in a position to understand what is needed. to the car from the driver’s point of view to find more performance “.
2022 will be the perfect opportunity for many teams to climb positions in the hierarchies that we have been able to appreciate over the last few years in Formula 1. For this reason AlphaTauri will try to exploit it and get the much desired fifth place in the Constructors’ World Championship. If the team from Faenza follows the breath of its lighthouse, Franz Tost, for AlphaTauri the 2022 season of the Italian-Austrian team could be one to remember.
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