How Red Bull's second team rescued its F1 2023 season

“I realised last year, in March or April, that from the aero side we were not going in the right direction. We had a wrong philosophy.”

In his final press conference as AlphaTauri team principal, Franz Tost made no bones about his disappointment with the team’s most recent pair of Formula 1 cars, and that he had set the wheels in motion for change. The Italian squad had enjoyed its best season at the end of the previous regulation set, claiming sixth in the 2021 constructors’ title with 142 points, but its first car under the new-for-2022 rules was comparatively unimpressive. Despite its deal with the parent Red Bull Racing squad to take as many transferable components as allowed under the regulations, AlphaTauri slipped to ninth in the championship as it fell towards the back of the field.

Tost, in one of his final acts as team principal, sought to bolster the aerodynamic contingent. So he tasked AlphaTauri’s HR department with finding “three, four or five senior aerodynamicists” to help turn the ship into more prosperous waters. With long gardening leave periods a hurdle in the Austrian’s desire for a more immediate turnaround, many of those aerodynamicists could not join the Faenza squad until 2023 had already started. The AT04 had already been born, and so the incoming reign of the new aero pharaohs was largely focused upon improving the current car to ensure that Tost’s final year at the helm was not spent at the back.

“Last year’s car didn’t work and I was totally shocked,” he explains. “Then this year, at the beginning, the car did not work. And I just said to the aero department and the engineers they have to bring to every race an upgrade; just bring new parts and improve the performance of the car. I just want to see a good lap time and the rest I’m not interested in. And I must say it worked out well.”

With the departure of Pierre Gasly to Alpine over the off-season, the team needed to gravitate around a new focal point on the driving front. Nyck de Vries was expected to become that. As a champion in both Formula 2 and Formula E, the Dutchman also had plenty of experience in his reserve role at Mercedes to draw upon. Outwardly, it suggested that the Frieslander would come straight in as team leader, fresh from having his CV gilded by ninth at the 2022 Italian Grand Prix in place of an unwell Alex Albon at Williams. Instead, it was Yuki Tsunoda who stepped up.

Perhaps too willing to play the role as Gasly’s little brother in their two years as team-mates, Tsunoda’s development under Tost started to bear fruit. A diamond in the rough during his first two seasons, the Japanese cut a more polished figure over 2023, toning down his oft-combative radio messages (slightly) with a willingness to help provide the feedback that the team needed to improve.

One key bugbear was that the car suffered from instability when being run at higher ride heights, resulting in a drop in downforce when contending with low-speed corner entry. This was something that Tsunoda could cope with better than de Vries; comparing their GPS traces through both of their Q1 laps at the Bahrain opener, Tsunoda carried far more speed into the plethora of slow corners, which yielded a Q2 appearance at the expense of his team-mate. A new floor taken to the Australian GP helped both cars get into Q2, which Tsunoda converted into the team’s first point of the year. He then got his car into Q3 at Baku, snaring eighth on the grid and finishing 10th once more in the Azerbaijani capital.

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

De Vries got the chop just 10 races into the season

De Vries, in the meantime, continued to struggle. His confidence was further sapped in Baku by hitting the wall at Turn 3 in qualifying, and he then binned it at Turn 5 during the race after clipping the inside barrier to snap his front-left suspension. The first half of the season had been contrary to early predictions: de Vries was being soundly beaten by Tsunoda. Even if the two were occasionally evenly matched in qualifying, Tsunoda was far stronger in the races and had contributed both points scored in the season’s opening half. The pressure had been on de Vries early on, and this escalated after a tepid British GP.

At this point, Daniel Ricciardo entered from stage left. After stepping away from F1 in the wake of a bruising two years at McLaren, his time spent rediscovering his groove in Red Bull’s simulator as ‘third driver’ had been productive. Wishing to see whether his progress could translate into the real world, he’d been given driving duties for the post-British GP Pirelli tyre test at Silverstone, where he got his hands on the all-conquering RB19.

This is perhaps mythologised as the moment when Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko decided to give de Vries his marching orders, as the Australian set some not-insignificant lap times at the wheel of the Red Bull. Regardless, de Vries’s lacklustre performances had been the last straw for Marko, and Ricciardo was drafted into the line-up for the Hungarian GP.

"We obviously started the season a long way off on the back foot, so there was plenty to find. But I think it’s fair to say that we’ve done a really good job at identifying the weaknesses of that car, and then working hard to try to address those" Jonathan Eddolls

That Ricciardo had plonked his car 13th on the grid with minimal preparation, outqualifying Tsunoda, suggested that AlphaTauri’s driver shuffling had been vindicated. The car was slowly becoming stronger too, with a handful of updates being taken to most races, and Ricciardo’s impressive run at the Hungaroring to finish where he’d started, with no experience of the car, suggested that its low-speed performance was becoming more manageable.

Tsunoda stepped up his game in response. An excellent drive at Spa yielded a third 10th-place finish to take into the summer break, and AlphaTauri plotted its way off the bottom of the standings. Ricciardo had a rougher ride at the famed Belgian venue and only managed 16th, and then his otherwise solid return to F1 hit something of a brick wall.

Oscar Piastri’s trip to the barrier at Zandvoort’s banked Hugenholtzbocht caught Ricciardo unaware during the Dutch GP’s second practice session. He avoided the stranded McLaren, but hit the wall with enough force to end up with a fractured hand, derailing his comeback significantly. AlphaTauri would need to make another driver change, this time against its own will. Liam Lawson had made the trip directly from the Japanese Super Formula race at Motegi to join AlphaTauri as its reserve driver, and was rewarded for his lengthy journey with the seat for the remainder of the weekend.
But conditions were difficult. Rain proved persistent throughout the rest of the event, handing Lawson an extra challenge to contend with in addition to his understanding of the car. It wasn’t a great surprise that he qualified last, but he pounced on the early rain with a pitstop that eventually contributed to a 13th-place finish – two positions higher than Tsunoda.

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

AlphaTauri's fourth driver of the season, albeit unexpectedly, became Lawson as injury stand-in for Ricciardo

Two races later, AlphaTauri’s performances in the low-speed conditions were further vindicated when Lawson finished a superb ninth in September’s Singapore GP. The team had introduced a hefty upgrade package for the Asian double-header, adding another new floor and reprofiling the bodywork to add more downforce; with the early issues fixed, Ricciardo had cited previously that the car simply lacked outright downforce on his first experience with it.

PLUS: The technical battlegrounds of F1 2023

A switch in rear suspension also helped; AlphaTauri had been using the suspension package from last year’s Red Bull, but swapped to the current specification to assist with curing rear-end instability at higher ride heights. After Lawson proved that these changes had worked handily in Singapore, the team was on the cusp of points again next time out at Suzuka.

Ricciardo was back for Austin after Lawson had one last race in Qatar, but the eight-time grand prix winner endured a difficult return as Tsunoda shone once again, claiming eighth to carry AlphaTauri to two points off Haas in the championship. The team was not about to abort its development for the year, and had found some lucrative gains in the wind tunnel in this period.

“We obviously started the season a long way off on the back foot, so there was plenty to find,” relates head of trackside engineering Jonathan Eddolls. “But I think it’s fair to say that we’ve done a really good job at identifying the weaknesses of that car, and then working hard to try to address those. All the updates you have seen since Austin onward – we’ve been updating the car all year, but to get points with so many cars in front, it’s taken quite a while to get to this stage where we can consistently score points with the car.”

A back-on-form Ricciardo delivered the team’s best result of the season in Mexico City, where he qualified a brilliant fourth and eventually landed in seventh position at the chequered flag to leapfrog both Haas and Alfa Romeo in the championship standings in one fell swoop. Not to be outdone, Tsunoda was brilliant in Brazil at the end of the Americas triple-header.

He followed up his sprint race sixth with ninth in the GP, helping the team draw clear of the two teams behind and affixing Williams securely in its sights. Although now strong in the low-speed stakes, straightline pace was still lacking. Las Vegas was therefore not a fruitful encounter, but finding seven points to move ahead of Williams in the constructors’ standings in the Abu Dhabi finale was achievable.

Here, Tsunoda underlined his own growth as a driver. Hoping to give his mentor Tost a fine send-off, he grabbed sixth on the grid in qualifying and hoped to convert that – doing so would be enough to get AlphaTauri above Williams in the championship. Williams had strategised around keeping Ricciardo out of the points, pinning AlphaTauri’s hopes solely on the 23-year-old. He executed the one-stop strategy to near-perfection, but it wasn’t enough to stave off the two-stoppers as his hard tyres began to age. Pouncing on Hamilton’s attempted last-lap overtaking move to retain eighth was the maximum he could achieve.

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Ricciardo reminded everyone of his quality with seventh place in Mexico to lift AlphaTauri ahead of Haas and Alfa Romeo

Regardless, AlphaTauri made great strides throughout 2023. Seemingly down and out while mired in last place after the first half of the season, Tost’s gauntlet-throwing at the start of the year appeared to spur the squad on into making heady progress with a poor car. He could be forgiven for taking some satisfaction out of the turnaround, as he begins a new chapter of his life after 18 years in charge at the team.

The seeds have been sown for the outfit’s new journey. Peter Bayer and Laurent Mekies will assume control of an operation that will be rebranded in 2024 and, with Tost’s hires bringing their influence to next year’s car, the team formerly known as Toro Rosso looks to be on the rise once again.

Williams reaches seventh heaven

James Vowles could be forgiven for having to mop the sweat from his brow as the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix drew to its final stages. Williams could do little to defend its seventh place in the constructors’ standings from AlphaTauri on pace alone – the FW45 proved ill-suited to the Yas Marina Circuit – but strategy helped its cause come race day.

This was a year for Williams to build from, with Vowles putting the foundations in place to help the team move forward after years of underinvestment

With Tsunoda in impressive form, Williams had to focus on stalling Ricciardo’s efforts to join the top 10 to ensure that the Italian squad’s late play for seventh could be halted. Ultimately, it worked out, securing the best constructors’ championship position for Williams since 2017.

It was an impressive first year as team principal for Vowles. Owner Dorilton Capital had been unhappy with the team’s progress under previous boss Jost Capito, as it slipped to the back of the order across 2022. This prompted Vowles to take control at the team, although the FW45 was already designed and built by the time he came into the fold. The ex-Mercedes strategist has been conscientiously building up the team from within, while noting key weaknesses with its ageing infrastructure. At races, his focus was on helping the team get the best out of its 2023 car.

Like its predecessor, the FW45 was stunningly fast in a straight line, but was not as much of a one-trick pony as the 2022 car. This gave Albon the platform to impress throughout 2023. The Anglo-Thai made the most of a somewhat peaky design when the stars aligned, and could be relied upon to convert impressive qualifying efforts into defensive masterclasses in races.

Photo by: Jake Grant / Motorsport Images

Albon's defensive display to take seventh in Canada was one of the performances of the season

The Canadian GP was the standout example, in which he roared to seventh place after keeping George Russell and Esteban Ocon firmly in his rear-view mirrors throughout the entire second half of the race. His defence against Fernando Alonso and Charles Leclerc in the British GP was also exemplary, as was his Italian GP run to seventh – a year after his appendicitis-enforced absence at Monza.

PLUS: The 10 best race drives of F1 2023

Albon scored 27 of Williams’s 28 points, while rookie Logan Sargeant managed to trouble the scorers just once – he was promoted to 10th at Austin after Lewis Hamilton and Leclerc were disqualified. A bright start in Bahrain quickly nose-dived with a qualifying crash in Jeddah, and a series of accidents continued to chisel away at Sargeant’s confidence. The car’s delicate front end, which was prone to locking, hurt the American’s progress – the Williams needed a surplus of downforce to stave off the understeer. Albon had managed to get his head around it, owing to his greater experience.

Sargeant managed to get the crashes out of his system after adding to an already hefty repair bill at Zandvoort and Suzuka, and qualifying sixth at Las Vegas showed that he’s got the underlying pace. Williams felt the same, and extended Sargeant’s deal into 2024.

This was a year for Williams to build from, with Vowles putting the foundations in place to help the team move forward after years of underinvestment. A change to the capital expenditure regulations has given the team a chance to modernise its facilities, something that Vowles cites as a key factor behind its 20-year fall from race wins to battling in the lower reaches of the points. That ambition has enticed Pat Fry to join as chief technical officer and, with the extra cash in its lap for finishing seventh, Williams finally seems to be heading on an upward trajectory.

Photo by: Williams

Can Williams build on its foundations in 2024?