F1 News: AlphaTauri Set To Bring Huge Upgrade To Austin Grand Prix

"There is still a lot of performance to find on those cars on the floor area"

The AlphaTauri team is set to bring a huge upgrade to the Austin Grand Prix on October 23 as part of its efforts to avoid ending the 2023 season last in the championship standings. 

The Singapore GP weekend saw the AT04 F1 car receive a package of new parts which offered a significant boost in performance. The floor then received further upgrades for the Qatar GP for added reliability. For Austin, the car is said to receive a new floor again. 

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AlphaTauri's head of vehicle performance Guilherme Dezoteux explained at the Losail International Circuit about the expected changes. He said:

“The floor update we brought here [Qatar] is for reliability.

"It’s on the forward part of the floor to make an aero surface more consistent and more robust. So it’s a small update. The biggest update came in Singapore, where we brought a complete new floor with the new bodywork.

"We do see an improvement, more in the corners than on the straight.

"But the car has made a step forward and we think this is one of the main factors we’ve been able to be closer to Q3 over those last races, that’s definitely one of the main factors.”

Hoping that the next upgrade would continue the team's progress with the car's performance, Dezoteux added:

“We have a new floor coming, again, that’s the main part everybody is developing a lot, there is still a lot of performance to find on those cars on the floor area. So we are manufacturing the floors for Austin, hoping that’s going to be another step in the same direction.

"But it’s fair to say that since Silverstone the updates have delivered and that’s a very positive sign for our aerodynamic department because the correlation is a difficult exercise and when you start delivering it means that the entire chain from analysing the car data, looking at the correlation to the wind tunnel and CFD and developing the aero surface is working.”

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Reserve driver Liam Lawson made the most of the Singapore upgrades that caused him to finish ninth- the best finish of the season for the team so far. But with Daniel Ricciardo most likely to take his seat back from Lawson in Austin, it would be interesting to see what kind of performance he is able to churn out from the AT04.