Franz Tost states AlphaTauri has to perform better being a sister Red Bull team to remain in F1, especially now that they are sharing windtunnel too.

“AlphaTauri is now a sister team rather than a Junior team,” Red Bull boss Horner asserted during the F1 Tuscan GP weekend. It was a crucial distinction, and a divergence from the prior attitude that the team were lower in rank to the senior outfit, the winningest of the two.

Born from Toro Rosso, which was initially established as a junior team to the Milton Keyes team with which it is associated, the team was recently re-branded, and in an effort to promote its new fashion brand, the team mustn’t be treated as inferior by design.

This was a point made by team boss of AlphaTauri, Franz Tost. The Austrian joined the then-Toro Rosso team upon its beginnings in F1, and retained his role as team principal as the team changed its brand identity this season. Under its new name, he says the team must perform better to be deserving of the ‘sister team’ status.

“I think that the team has grown up in the last years, that we show better performance, the cars are more reliable, the co-operation with Red Bull Technology is very positive and all the synergy process brings us a lot of advantages, everything within the regulations,” said Tost.

“And we have AlphaTauri now, we are the brand ambassador for AlphaTauri and therefore we have to show a good performance, we have to be there because otherwise it doesn’t make sense for AlphaTauri to be in F1. This is what Christian meant, that we have to improve the performance, we have become better and the victory in Monza showed that we are able to do it,” summed up Tost.

Horner put some meat on the bone, explaining that Red Bull and AlphaTauri will be using the same wind tunnel facility as their partnership grows all the more intimate. “Obviously AlphaTauri is a rebranded team for this year,” said Horner.

“I think that their aspirations are beyond where Toro Rosso’s were and I think we obviously have a synergy project within the regulations that we’re allowed so for example, the sharing of the wind tunnel will happen for the first time next year, which makes complete sense from a financial perspective.

“That’s what I was referring to and I think that, from a talent pool, Red Bull has invested in so many young drivers over the years and we’ve got some good young talent coming through. You can see in F2, F3 the talent that we have and will continue. The regulations have been clarified very recently as to what is permitted and what isn’t.

“It doesn’t fundamentally change anything that we’ve been doing with AlphaTauri apart from the fact that we start co-sharing the wind tunnel which makes a great deal of sense. So the tools that we’re using, within the models, the model size, AlphaTauri will be utilising the same equipment, the same tunnel.

“Hopefully that will be helpful for them in their development, particularly with the 2022 car being such a significant regulation change. So I think the regulations are now clear, the grey zones have been taken out in terms of what is and isn’t allowed and hopefully AlphaTauri will certainly benefit from that,” Horner stated.

On the matter of their technical alliance, Tost added: “I just want to explain, regarding the wind tunnel, because we are the only team using the 50 per cent wind tunnel and then of course Bedford is 60 per cent there which will obviously bring us an advantage because you can make much more valid measurements and the rest is not a synergy process, we did it already in the last years quite successfully, it was saving money and improving the performance, because Red Bull Technology at a very high level from a technical standard and therefore I don’t see anything special.”

The growing synergies is another factor why Horner and even Helmut Marko have spoken about Pierre Gasly being a ‘team leader’ at AlphaTauri, while putting faith on his abilities to be performing there and retaining Alexander Albon at Red Bull.

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