F1 News: AlphaTauri CEO Reveals Huge Red Bull Regret In 2023

Peter Bayer suggests that the team developing its own suspension was an erroneous decision.

AlphaTauri CEO Peter Bayer disclosed that the team missed an opportunity to enhance rear stability in the first half of the 2023 season by not borrowing Red Bull's RB19 rear suspension for their AT04 F1 car. The decision to swap suspensions after the Singapore Grand Prix proved effective.

The Italian team had a rather uneventful start to the season leading up to the summer break, as it couldn't push its car up the order. What added to the inconsistency was the ousting of Nyck de Vries and the selection of Daniel Ricciardo, who faced a temporary retirement as a result of an injury, paving the way for rookie driver Liam Lawson. 

Eventually, as the driver lineup settled down, so did the car, courtesy of the floor upgrades AlphaTauri introduced. In Singapore, the team fitted its car with the RB19's rear suspension, which made a huge difference to the stability of the AT04's tail section. The positive step also complimented the team's floor upgrades. 

Consequently, the car began to show its colors later in the championship and helped the team secure an eighth-place finish, narrowly missing out on surpassing Williams. This turnaround occurred after spending a significant portion of the season at the bottom of the standings.

Speaking on the erroneous decision, the CEO revealed that the rear suspension from Red Bull should have come a lot earlier. But an error in decision-making proved costly. He told Autosport.com

"The initial decision to go our own way with those critical parts simply was an error, and the people [who made the decision] back then are not with us anymore.

"I guess engineers always have plenty of arguments why you should do certain things, but I think everybody in the paddock understood now that with this new regulation change and the new downforce pattern, which is so reliant on the floor, the suspension is the next most important thing.

"You've got the floor and then you've got the suspension. If those two don't work together, you might as well not go out." 

When he was asked if there was any sense in trying to outsmart Red Bull, Bayer replied with a grin, stating:

"I guess that's the big learning for us for this year, yeah. 

"But at the same time, what is tricky for us as a customer is you get a piece, but you have to make that piece work and it's very difficult.

"Look at some other teams who have hired ex-Red Bull aerodynamicists and engineers, they made some quick gains but then constant development is not as easy as it looks. 

"We've seen in Singapore something seemed to work slightly better, but we weren't really sure. And that's one of the key aspects of [technical director] Jody [Egginton's] team, they put a lot of effort into understanding the global concept.

"How can it be actually possible that this [Red Bull] car is so stable, that it has this ability in slow corners, fast corners, straight-line speed? And that's where Jody and the guys sort of had a breakthrough moment."