Helmut Marko not satisfied with AlphaTauri’s progress during F1 2022 season
Pierre Gasly driving the upgraded AlphaTauri AT03 at Paul Ricard, host of his home event. France, July 2022.
Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko explained that sister team AlphaTauri have not yet taken the step forward expected of them in 2022.
The outfit was formerly known as Toro Rosso, traditionally used as Red Bull’s junior team to bring their top prospects into Formula 1 and ready them for a future Red Bull drive.
But for 2020 the team underwent a rebranding to become AlphaTauri, promoting Red Bull’s fashion line under that name as the outfit was upgraded to the status of being Red Bull’s sister team.
However, for all the success which Red Bull has enjoyed in 2022 as a new regulatory era was ushered into Formula 1, AlphaTauri have struggled to make their mark.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen leads the Drivers’ Championship, while Red Bull top the Constructors’ standings, but AlphaTauri find themselves P8 in the standings ahead of only Aston Martin and Williams.
After dropping to the back of the pack in Austria, AlphaTauri rolled out a much-needed upgrade for the French Grand Prix, though Pierre Gasly was unable to score points, while Yuki Tsunoda was forced to retire after an opening-lap collision with Esteban Ocon.
The streak of point-less races for AlphaTauri stretched to five in Hungary, so Marko openly admits that the team are not meeting expectations.
Asked by Motorsport-Total.com if he is satisfied with how things are going at AlphaTauri, Marko replied: “No. AlphaTauri only came with a reasonable update in Le Castellet, they didn’t have enough updates.
“The race was bad. Gasly made a mistake there when he lost his points position trying to overtake. Ocon drove into Yuki and the car was massively damaged. The update improved a bit and was successful. Now you have to work from there.
“But the claim to be successful in the midfield is currently not fulfilled.”
A P5 finish for Gasly in Azerbaijan remains AlphaTauri’s best result of the 2022 campaign so far, a P8 in Saudi Arabia being his next-best result.
For Tsunoda, P7 at Imola is his strongest 2022 showing so far, though he has not scored points for seven successive races, while Baku was Gasly’s only points finish for that same period.
Overall, it means that AlphaTauri sit on just 27 points during the summer break, with nine rounds remaining to try to get somewhere close to their best haul of 142 in 2021.
