2023 Scuderia AlphaTauri F1 Team

[organic]

Better info than the ESPN article. Seems that Daniel was almost ready for Qatar but not taking risks

[Wouter]

Lawson to drive in Qatar. Ricciardo looks ahead to COTA

https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/3855 ... -formula-1

Well, that is good news for Liam!

[runningmanz]

Yeah best outcome for all at the moment. No point rushing Dan back and risking more damage to his hand etc.

Good article with some more info in how valuable Dan's feedback has been at AT

https://www.speedcafe.com/2023/10/04/ri ... lphatauri/

[TNTHead]

Yeah best outcome for all at the moment. No point rushing Dan back and risking more damage to his hand etc.

Good article with some more info in how valuable Dan's feedback has been at AT

https://www.speedcafe.com/2023/10/04/ri ... lphatauri/

RIC will drive a year or two and then proceed as the TD at AT? Seems not far fetched if you read the speedrace article.

[Wouter]

Yeah best outcome for all at the moment. No point rushing Dan back and risking more damage to his hand etc.

Good article with some more info in how valuable Dan's feedback has been at AT

https://www.speedcafe.com/2023/10/04/ri ... lphatauri/

RIC will drive a year or two and then proceed as the TD at AT? Seems not far fetched if you read the speedrace article.

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Indeed. The Speedcafe article is from Australia.
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“I think the other things that were impressive, and reminders of what experience can bring, were: how he could understand the race;
the feedback that he could give live;
how he thought the tyres were behaving – was it a one-stop or a two-stop; or if there was a Safety Car, could he reheat these tyres? Or would we need to fit a fresh set.”

.
WOW!

The strategic decisions are always very bad. Yuki has already indicated countless times during and before the race that he disagreed,
but no one ever listened to it and when Ricciardo says something about it, it is suddenly great???

[PikeStance]

Well, it makes sense. If you going to come back from an injury it would be preferable to come back for a three-practice weekend, rather than a sprint weekend. Plus, he may be an Aussie, but he seems to be Texan at heart. He ain't missing that one.

[djos]

Yeah best outcome for all at the moment. No point rushing Dan back and risking more damage to his hand etc.

Good article with some more info in how valuable Dan's feedback has been at AT

https://www.speedcafe.com/2023/10/04/ri ... lphatauri/

RIC will drive a year or two and then proceed as the TD at AT? Seems not far fetched if you read the speedrace article.

Hyperbole much!

Clearly the team believe quality and detail of his feedback is far superior to his predecessors, including Yuki.

[Farnborough]

The experience, running at the front and winning against significant opposition, is extremely valuable to the team. I still think he's a lot to offer and next year we'll get to understand if there's performance there.

It also seems patently obvious that during the time at McL there were elements within the technical team that had no real intention of listening to this sort of input ! Primarily evidenced by their changes in circumstances now with a personell shift there bringing such large gains to relative performance.

DR now has a decent chance to show where he's at, evidenced by that RB test, with a team that clearly knows what they want to see in a driver's attitude and performance. Definitely a valid choice to be on grid next season.

[Wouter]

The second Qatar Grand Prix in F1 history is just a few days away!

Yuki Tsunoda

“Naturally, I’m pleased that it was announced in Japan that I’m staying with the team next year. I’m very happy about that, and it’s one less thing to worry about for the rest of this season. The whole Japanese Grand Prix week was an amazing experience. It was definitely special, especially the support during the race and before that, in qualifying, with a great reaction from the fans as I made it through each session from Q1 to Q2 and Q3. Seeing all the flags waving everywhere, I felt the massive support. It gave me extra energy for the whole week rather than making me feel any additional pressure. After the race, I stayed in Japan for a couple of days, mostly doing work-related events, but I managed to spend time with my family, which was nice, and it was good to catch up.

“Once I was back in Europe, I spent a day in the simulator before heading to Qatar. The last time we were there in 2021, I enjoyed driving the track and making it to P8 in qualifying. It’s very flat, and aero efficiency is very important for the many high-speed corners. It will be a physically demanding race, and tyre degradation will be an important factor. You need to balance your aero between being fast and having enough downforce so that you don’t slide too much in the corners and damage the tyres. There is also a big difference in speed range between qualifying and the race because of the amount you carry into the corners Overtaking is possible at this track, so it will be important to get a good idea of long run pace, but of course, we only have one Free Practice session with the Sprint format this weekend. I’m not too worried about car performance as it was good for qualifying in Suzuka, and we understand why we could not perform as well as we wanted to in the race in Japan, so we can take that experience to do better in Qatar.

“We showed a bit of a performance improvement from the upgrades we brought, especially in qualifying. I think the upgrades are working, and they gave me more confidence to fight, but I think we may need a couple more races to finally estimate their value because Singapore and Suzuka are completely different tracks. If we perform well in Qatar, that will confirm the effectiveness of the upgrades.”


Liam Lawson

“The whole Japan experience was good. The week was very, very busy because of more media and events than I’ve ever had to deal with, but it was all pretty good fun, and the weekend itself was also enjoyable.

“For the first time since Zandvoort, I got a good start in the race. I always knew what was missing. It was just about putting the procedure together, which is very different to what I’m used to in Super Formula. It’s good that I’ve done it because it definitely helped, and now I’ll continue working on them to keep doing them well.

“Now we move on to Qatar. I’m not sure how we’ll get on there or how the upgrades will work. I think it’s hard to say because where we struggled in Japan was mainly in the high speed, in Sector 1. We still have more to learn about our new package, and I’m not so sure that Qatar is the type of circuit that will suit our car. Learning takes time, and we’ve got more opportunities in Qatar to try and get the most out of it. However, it’s also a Sprint weekend, so at the same time, that makes it quite tricky, especially in my situation. I’ve never driven here, so going into the sprint weekend will be extra tough.

“I drove the Qatar track in the simulator at the end of last week. It’s very fast, a very high-speed circuit and quite unique, and I’ve not seen many tracks like it, as there’s only one low-speed corner in the whole track. The rest is just fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh gear, so I think it’s going to be exciting to drive. With only one Free Practice session, we drivers will have to know where to improve because it’ll get faster at night when it’s much cooler, and we need to know exactly how to extract everything out of the car. I’m expecting it to be tougher than the races we’ve just done.

“In Japan, the news came public that I’m back to the role of reserve driver next year. Obviously, my goal is to be in Formula 1 full-time, so as much as it’s disappointing, it’s still my goal, and it’s now about trying to make sure that I can make that happen in the future. Right now, I’ve still got this opportunity to keep trying to show something, and I’ll try to make the most of it. For now, as long as this lasts, I’ll focus on it, and then once I step back from F1, it’ll be full focus on preparing for the final round of the Super Formula championship at Suzuka on the weekend of the Mexican Grand Prix. It’ll be very different adjusting back to the car, but it’s certainly been useful having driven so many laps at Suzuka throughout the Grand Prix weekend.”

[runningmanz]

Yeah best outcome for all at the moment. No point rushing Dan back and risking more damage to his hand etc.

Good article with some more info in how valuable Dan's feedback has been at AT

https://www.speedcafe.com/2023/10/04/ri ... lphatauri/

RIC will drive a year or two and then proceed as the TD at AT? Seems not far fetched if you read the speedrace article.

Hyperbole much!

Clearly the team believe quality and detail of his feedback is far superior to his predecessors, including Yuki.

Yeah I don't get the salt from some here, it's not just "Australian" media saying this. Also Renault praised him for his feedback and dev assistance, RBR and now AT. No point being bitter about it. It's facts, take it onboard and give him some credit. The teams are not stupid..

[Wouter]

RIC will drive a year or two and then proceed as the TD at AT? Seems not far fetched if you read the speedrace article.

.
Hyperbole much!

Clearly the team believe quality and detail of his feedback is far superior to his predecessors, including Yuki.

.
Yeah I don't get the salt from some here, it's not just "Australian" media saying this. Also Renault praised him for his feedback and dev assistance, RBR and now AT. No point being bitter about it. It's facts, take it onboard and give him some credit. The teams are not stupid..

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Jonathan Eddolls has praised Yuki several times regarding, among other things, his good feedback on the car and the tire strategy.
Nobody on the pit wall did anything with that and now they would suddenly do that with Ricciardo?!
This is only a statement because RB (SAT) has received a lot of criticism for appointing an "old" driver who was fired from McLaren
due to his poor performance in place of the young, high-performing rookie Liam Lawson.

When Ricciardo still drove for RBR, he very often took over Max's setup and he said himself that he had little knowledge
of technical matters relating to the car. He was amazed at how much Max knew about everything and could give such good feedback.

[basti313]

RIC will drive a year or two and then proceed as the TD at AT? Seems not far fetched if you read the speedrace article.

Hyperbole much!

Clearly the team believe quality and detail of his feedback is far superior to his predecessors, including Yuki.

Yeah I don't get the salt from some here, it's not just "Australian" media saying this. Also Renault praised him for his feedback and dev assistance, RBR and now AT. No point being bitter about it. It's facts, take it onboard and give him some credit. The teams are not stupid..

Well, you are right, but we need to put "dev" into the right context...you still do not develop a car by driver feedback, you "just" set it up. I think this is one of the major strength that RedBull has and AT lacked: You go into FP1 with a semi-optimal setup and the driver needs to give feedback on how to improve. After some minor tweaks for FP2 the guys in the sim use this feedback and work out a better setup for Sat. I think this is where we see a lot of "development".
And this makes a difference...in Japan AT was again surprisingly good in FP...similar to Stroll or the Alfa. Then come Saturday they drop back. And that was even not as bad as before...

By the way:
I think it is very interesting what Horner just said about Lawson...if you read the obvious between the lines...
- He will drive for them in 25 (and certainly not for Williams).
- He will not drive against Verstappen.
- They want Yuki to develop under Ric

Means the planned AT pairing for 25 is Law + Tsu.

[organic]

In terms of "development" i am pretty certain that they're not referring to the driver's ability to aid car setup improvement within a weekend. They're referring to the ability of the driver to influence the engineers in the right direction to eliminate flaws in the design.

[djos]

In terms of "development" i am pretty certain that they're not referring to the driver's ability to aid car setup improvement within a weekend. They're referring to the ability of the driver to influence the engineers in the right direction to eliminate flaws in the design.

Regardless, they wouldn’t have given him an “engineering” role and put him on the pit wall for race weekends if they didn’t value his input.

[runningmanz]

.
Hyperbole much!

Clearly the team believe quality and detail of his feedback is far superior to his predecessors, including Yuki.

.
Yeah I don't get the salt from some here, it's not just "Australian" media saying this. Also Renault praised him for his feedback and dev assistance, RBR and now AT. No point being bitter about it. It's facts, take it onboard and give him some credit. The teams are not stupid..

.
Jonathan Eddolls has praised Yuki several times regarding, among other things, his good feedback on the car and the tire strategy.
Nobody on the pit wall did anything with that and now they would suddenly do that with Ricciardo?!
This is only a statement because RB (SAT) has received a lot of criticism for appointing an "old" driver who was fired from McLaren
due to his poor performance in place of the young, high-performing rookie Liam Lawson.

When Ricciardo still drove for RBR, he very often took over Max's setup and he said himself that he had little knowledge
of technical matters relating to the car. He was amazed at how much Max knew about everything and could give such good feedback.

I don't think you are giving Dan enough credit. While he might not have been the most technical guy he knows what a good car should handle like and can steer development in the right direction. Renault even praised Dan for his help developing the car which improved alot with Dan's input esp in 2020.

""It's not also a necessity, let's be honest, as I'm not fighting for any championship as we stand here right now. It would make absolutely no sense, and Daniel will be involved in the development process of the car."

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/renau ... 2/4981642/

“I think there is no doubt about the progression of the team this year. It’s very much a credit to Daniel who’s been clearly leading the charge of the team and behind him a group of people and a group of mechanics and engineers who are doing a remarkable job on track.

“Off-track, obviously we know Daniel is a great ambassador, is a team leader. He has clearly been instrumental to the changes that we’ve done last year when we had altogether a disappointing season.

https://www.planetf1.com/news/renault-p ... -ricciardo

Even Red Bull talked about his valuable input again recently

"Waterhouse went on to reveal how Daniel Ricciardo’s unique position within the team allows him to contribute significantly during simulation sessions.

The Australian driver possesses valuable insights into the preferences and requirements of Red Bull’s drivers when it comes to car setups."

https://formula1news.co.uk/red-bull-rev ... gio-perez/

Ricciardo taught Max how to setup an F1 car.

"Max Verstappen says he is “still guessing” how to set up his Red Bull Formula 1 car and is relying on teammate Daniel Ricciardo while he builds experience with the team."
Asked whether he is leaning on Ricciardo for this, Verstappen replied: “Definitely. He has a lot of experience.

https://racer.com/2016/06/09/verstappen ... ar-set-up/

Jos talked about how Ricciardo was Verstappens best teammate and taught him alot while they were together too.

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/146804/j ... mmate.html