Tost: Engineers never accept they went in the wrong direction
F1 NewsTuesday, 12 December 2023 at 14:48
Retiring AlphaTauri team principal Franz Tost made some starkly honest assessments when reflecting on the 2023 Formula 1 World Championship season, his final year in charge of the Red Bull junior team since 2006.
That was the year that the late petrolhead billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz added a second F1 team to his burgeoning Red Bull empire, taking over - Minardi - much loved as everyone's favourite 'other' F1 team, but perennial backmarkers.
The newly formed Toro Rosso (Red Bull in Italian) remained based in the original Faenza HQ and was set up to be Red Bull's junior team to develop promising talent through the RBR Junior Team driver programme.
While two Grand Prix victories and five podiums is hardly a stellar record on his CV, Tost's role was not to win races but rather to help crash-happy young drivers develop and shine the diamonds that filtered to the top of a gruelling Red Bull driver programme.
Toro Rosso fronted by Gerhard Berger, with Tost doing the real graft in the background, won the Red Bull organisation's first-ever Grand Prix when Vettel triumphed famously at Monza in 2008. Junior beating Senior to that first big trophy has poetic justice that racing folk will appreciate.
Vettel and Verstappen are alumni of the Tost University of F1
Among other illustrious drivers who were touched by Tost's tutelage include Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen, as well as the current posse of current or former Bulls: Daniel Ricciardo, Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon, Carlos Sainz and Yuki Tsunoda.
But 2023 did not go according to plan for Tost's AlphaTauri. After Gasly's departure to Alpine at the end of last season, AlphaTauri signed Nyck de Vries only to realise after 11 races that the Dutchman was a one-hit-wonder. Prodigal son Ricciardo, his career also in tatters after a dismal time at McLaren, got the call to partner Tsunoda.
The Aussie veteran remains a shadow of the driver he was when he departed Red Bull at the end of 2018. A broken hand at Zandvoort did Dan no favours while opening the door to an obvious talent, aka Liam Lawson.
Hence Tost had four drivers to contend with during the season of his final watch, and all they could do was score 25 points in 22 races, well short of the 281 points required for their P5 target.
Franz: We went in completely wrong direction with aero
Speaking to F1.com, after the season finale Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, reflecting on the F1 season past, Tost said: “I am not happy or proud. The target was to finish fifth in the constructors’ championship and we didn’t achieve this goal. Therefore there is no reason to be happy or proud.
"I’m upset we didn’t achieve this goal. I’m thinking to myself: Why you were too stupid to do this?’ Formula 1 is very fair. Either you can do it or you’re not clever enough. This year’s performance was by far not what we expected.
“It started with the regulation change for 2022. We were competitive in 2020 and 2021. Then there was the change and we went in the wrong direction from the aero side. Completely wrong. I recognised this in March or April.
"I went to HR and I said to the HR Director we need three to five senior aerodynamic engineers. He said to me: But the season has just started. I said: Forget it, the car does not work. We are so far behind. I know F1, you can’t catch up so much."
Franz: The AlphaTauri AT04 was too slow
The Austrian team boss continued: "The slow car meant we don’t think until July or August we will catch up. You need new people. I had many talks with people in the aero department, I felt they got lost with the new regulations.
“You have to change the people because engineers will never accept they went in the wrong direction. They will always have an excuse, and they’ll say the next upgrade will be better, and the update after will be better. Forget this nonsense, I don’t want to hear it anymore.
“We looked for new people, fortunately, we found them but in F1 these days, they are blocked by one-year gardening leave. We got the first in April [2023], the second in July and the third in September. For me, it was important to find out whether this new aero people understand the philosophy – whether they go in the right direction or not.
“So, I pushed for a new upgrade at every race just to find out if they do a proper job or not, otherwise next year’s car would not be competitive, which is what I wanted to prevent. The last upgrades worked quite well. Apart from Austin, but this was a tyre problem, we were competitive," concluded Tost.
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