How "only tough" Tost's public lack of trust could hurt AlphaTauri

Last week Mercedes' public note of apology was the focus of a column, as the team elected to fall on its sword upon discovery its W14 did not meet expectations. One stands by the notion that it was a little over the top, although the humility was certainly appreciated.

Amid the succeeding grand prix’s media sessions in Saudi Arabia, another team that has been disappointed with its results conveyed the opposite message. Rather than opting for a united front of self-criticism and public assurance that the team was working together on its ills, the team’s figurehead instead elected to throw everyone under the bus.

In the Friday press conference featuring the team principals and representatives, Franz Tost was in no particular mood to be diplomatic with his dismay that AlphaTauri had not been able to make a step in performance after a difficult 2022. Asked about the team’s performance in Bahrain by emcee Tom Clarkson, where Yuki Tsunoda and Nyck de Vries finished outside of the points, Tost openly criticised the team’s engineers and admitted that he no longer trusts them after their promises that the AT04 would offer a much-improved package over last year.

“Unfortunately, I think it's currently the performance level of the car because we expected a much better car,” Tost said. “We struggled in Bahrain. We have to do a lot of things to make the car faster, especially on the aerodynamic side.

“There are different programmes going on, and the engineers tell me that we made some good progress, but I don't trust them anymore. I just want to see the lap time because this is the only thing which counts. There’s not enough downforce. Therefore the car is unstable under braking, overheating the rear tyres, washing out at the apex, bad traction, everything what you need to do a good lap time.

“Then in Bahrain we have still some under-steering problems which we have to get rid of and the rest, and we will see. During the winter months they told me the car is fantastic, we’ve made big progress and then we come to Bahrain and we are nowhere. What else should I say?”

Tost was in no mood to mince his words in the team bosses press conference on Friday in Jeddah

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Unsurprisingly, the murmurings are that the AlphaTauri engineers have taken an understandably dim view of Tost’s public takedown of their efforts. The team has struggled to get on top of the 2022-spec rules changes, even though the basic concept of how it works the underbody is similar to that of the Red Bull RB19. But at the same time, this is a team that has been successful in punching above its weight in the F1 midfield; it even won a race as recently as the 2020 Italian Grand Prix. Perhaps, then, those who make the magic happen at Faenza and Bicester deserve a little more respect.

In his open distrust of the team, it’s as though Tost looked at the Mercedes approach to fronting up to its mistakes and opted to swing way too far in the opposite direction. Arguably an ‘old-school’ management type, perhaps anachronistically so in modern F1, Tost appears to have channelled the late Brian Clough’s tenure at Leeds United.

For those less in tune with footballing history, Clough was particularly antagonistic to Leeds’ top players, even allegedly suggesting that they should “throw your medals in the bin because you’ve never won anything fairly” early on in his short managerial stint at the Yorkshire club. To cut a long story short, the likes of Johnny Giles and Billy Bremner - league champions in the previous year - were alienated by Clough, who was sacked after 44 days with the team languishing in 19th in Division One.

Trust is not so easily restored; if Tost can openly admit to losing trust in those who have served the team well in the past few years, they may equally lose trust in his leadership

Motivational techniques of the past seemed to confer a lot of shouting upon a workforce to get a rise out of it, but not everyone responds to that. Leadership in today’s environment is a science of humanity; it involves getting to know each individual and understanding how to get them to perform at their best. Painting a collective with one single brush and making a sweeping statement in public rarely butters parsnips, and causing enough dissent in the ranks can lead to mutiny.

Earlier in the press conference, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff explained that although his team only wanted to focus on the problems rather than blaming any individual, he stated that sometimes he had to resort to tough love to get the best out of certain people in the team. When Tost was asked if he had opted for a similar management style, Wolff deadpanned that his fellow Austrian’s attitude was “only tough”.

“I don't care about that,” Tost responded afterwards. “I just want to see a fast car. Whether tough or not, I simply don't care.”

In the instance of AlphaTauri, the engineers and designers will know that the AT04 has not performed to expectations. Heads will drop with performance, and the strategy then is to galvanise those within the team and encourage them to find a way out. There are some who will respond positively to Tost’s declarations and will set out to prove the team principal wrong for ever doubting them, but others will find it less palatable.

AlphaTauri has struggled for form since the 2022 rule changes, but Tost's public criticisms haven't done the mood in the camp much good

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Disciplinarians may take the measure of offering those who don’t respond well to public criticism an exit, but an organisation like AlphaTauri could lose much in the way of talent simply by mismanaging them. One cannot imagine someone like Adrian Newey, for example, reacting well to an outburst like Tost’s. Success in a certain field requires many variables, and one of them pertains to passion and enjoyment. Dampen either of those variables with the wrong managerial techniques, and you lose the intangible force that motivates them.

It’s something that Newey discusses in his book How To Build A Car, where Williams’s decisions to sideline him led to his departure from McLaren. This also led to him departing McLaren in 2005. His Red Bull tenure has lasted for 17 years as the team made him feel wanted, offering him the chance to mould his design team the way he wanted and work in the way he was accustomed to.

There are talented designers in the AlphaTauri team and, although recent performances will have caused them to doubt themselves, they need someone who will help pick their confidence up – rather than stick the boot in.

Tost has made his expectations of the team clear, and the team will bring developments in a bid to turn its season around as the key weaknesses of the package have been identified. It’s still possible for the team to break out of the lower midfield, but they need to feel enfranchised to do so.

“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, on the computer, we made a big progress in comparison to last year's,” Tost added.

“But all these figures nowadays, as I mentioned before, I don't trust them anymore. I want to see now with the next steps that we go in the right direction that we can improve the performance of the car, that we are able to do this. This is especially on the floor, brake ducts and all the other aerodynamics. I think now with all the knowledge we have after the Bahrain test and after the Bahrain race, the engineers should be in the position to sort it out and to come up with new parts which improve the performance of the car.”

Conversely, it could be Tost who is feeling the pressure amid rumours that AlphaTauri is up for sale, although those were quashed after “good meetings” with new Red Bull GmbH chief Oliver Mintzlaff suggesting that the team will continue to receive support from the energy drink giant.

Tost has stated that there is no foundation to rumours of AlphaTauri's sale, but pressure in F1 is a constant

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But Mintzlaff is known to have limited enthusiasm for racing, unlike the late founder Dietrich Mateschitz. While the Red Bull squad is self-sufficient thanks to big sponsorship deals and hefty prize money rewards, and Ford coming in to support its powertrain department, AlphaTauri is primarily underwritten by the parent company. Mintzlaff may yet consider this an unnecessary expense.

In the present, the team has work to do to break out of its stupor. Tost’s words may come back to haunt him and, as F1 team bosses start to become as expendable as football managers, he could have conceivably lost the dressing room.

There’s still time for Tost to rally the troops and, cap in hand, apologise for his public outcry. But trust is not so easily restored; if he can openly admit to losing trust in those who have served the team well in the past few years, they may equally lose trust in his leadership. And once that trust has diffused into the ether, the culture within the team will become even more difficult to fix.

Will Tost be able to restore the trust of AlphaTauri's rank and file after his public outburst?

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool