F1 News: AlphaTauri Optimistic For 2024 As Red Bull Parts Bolster Season Start

AlphaTauri technical director Jody Egginton has suggested that the team is keen on maintaining its "trajectory of progress," initiated in the second half of 2023 after it borrowed parts from Red Bull's RB19. While Red Bull's junior team is all set to borrow more parts this year, the aim is to carry the pace from the end of last year into 2024. 

The first half of 2023 seemed to be a difficult task for the team as AlphaTauri fought a battle way down the pecking order. But an aero overhaul and a borrowed rear suspension from Red Bull meant that drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda could contend much higher on the Formula 1 grid and begin to score points on a consistent basis towards the end of the season.

With the strategy in place to use more parts from the Milton Keynes outfit this year, Eggington insists that AlphaTauri wants to progress further but without being too "intense" like last year. He told Autosport.com:

“We want to keep on this trajectory of progress we've been on in the second half of the year [2023].

“The target is to achieve something similar to what we did in 2020 to 2021. We've been there before, we've done it, and we just need a solid winter and to hit the ground running.

“Then our season can be a little bit... not easy, it's never easy, but a bit more progressive. And we can develop the car in a slightly more structured way.

“[Last] year everyone in the team was flat out trying to get everything to the car as quickly as we can, which is what you want to do in Formula 1.

“But we want to be able to take a more measured and consistent approach. And if the car is a bit stronger out of the box at the start of the season, we can refine the approach we want to do, and that'll be a good measure of the progress we're making.”

The technical director also added that AlphaTauri has been clear about its targets but emphasizes that more work must be done to remain on the same trajectory. He said:

“Sometimes, it's good to take a bit of a breath and go, ‘well hang on a moment, we've been flat out trying to get back to where we want to be.’

“We were very clear publicly and also internally on which of our targets we missed, and in time we needed to address those.

“But in-season, everyone's moving forward as well. So, on top of where you want it to be for race one, you've got to keep going.

“So, credit to the team. We managed to claw it back, but we've got more work to do to get to where we want to be.

“But if we can keep on this trajectory, [we can be] similar to where we were in 2020 to 2021. We hit the ground running in 2021, and we had a good solid season and were consistent.”