AlphaTauri boss Franz Tost at F1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix: “I don’t trust my engineers anymore”
AlphaTauri were perhaps the biggest strugglers with F1’s new aerodyna🌜mic rules last season, finishing ninth in the constructors’ championship after mana💧ging sixth the year before.
Red Bull have been forced to deny reports that they w🍸ere looking to sell their sister team, after an underwhelming year.
“The engineers tell me we made some good progress but I don’t trust them anymore,” Tost said at the 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:F1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
“I just want to see the lap time because this is t🐻he only thing that counts.
“During the winter 🎶months they told me: ‘The car is fantastic, we made big progress!’
“Then we came to Bahrain and we ar🍷e nowhere. What 🤪should I say?”
AlphaTauri were ninth-fastest in qu🌳alifying in Bahrain but would have been slowest had McLaren’s Lando Norris not suffered problems.
Tost was grilled about his comments about his own engineers꧟ but bit back: “I don’t care about that, I just want to see a fast car whether tough or not. I simply don’t care.”
Tost explained the problems with the AT04: “There’s not enougꦡh down💙force. Therefore the car is unstable under braking and overheats the rear tyres.
“Washing out at t♈he apex, then traction. Everything that you need to do a good lap time.
“Here in Jeddah the characteristic of the race track is completely different and both drivers are not sat🍸isfied with the car but satisfied that the car feels better than in Bahrain.
“Still have some understeer problems that w𒊎e have to get rid of and the rest we will se𝐆e.”
Tost promised minor upgrades at each of the next few races but warned: “The ꦿquestion is now,💧 do we go in the right direction?
“As I mentioned before, during the winter months we saw that, at least on the paper and on the computer🦹, we made big progress in comparison to last year’s car.
“But all these figures nowadays, as I mentioned before, I ꦜdon’t trust them now.
“I want to see now with the next steps tha🧸t we go in the right direction, that we can improve the performance of the car, that we are able to ⛎do this and this is a specialism work on the floor, brake ducts, and all the other aerodynamic parts.
“I thin𝐆k now with al💝l the knowledge we have after Bahrain test and after the Bahrain race, the engineers should be in a position to sort it out and come up with new parts which improve the performance of the car.”
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade coverওing everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
