2023 Scuderia AlphaTauri F1 Team

[JordanMugen]

Devries continues to be a donkey. I think Marko should put one of the young drivers from the academy in that car soon.

I'm surprised with how conservative AT has been with the driver selection. You would think they would sign drivers to half seasons and get more drivers in the seat. The gems don't take long to show themselves.

Recall that AT's first choice was Colton Herta.

Obviously Vips was dropped. Lawson is doing much better in Super Formula than F2 for some reason, else he would have been promoted already. Hauger seems promising also, as does Iwasa.

Of course there are many talented juniors on rival programs, like Victor Martins, so those are not necessarily available to Red Bull (Alpine contract shenanigans not withstanding).

You suppose half a season each for Lawson and Iwasa would have been best?

It seems unclear as to which Red Bull junior is best (one of the ones in F3? obviously if Honda owned the team Iwasa would be promoted regardless of other prospects ), or if it would be better to put Ricciardo in, in case Ricciardo is still a top driver who would outperform Tsunoda easily?

[Wouter]

[Wouter]

Nice long interview with Liam Lawson who is in the running for a seat at SAT.
.

Lawson has great start in Japan: 'I certainly didn't expect this'

After finishing third in the 2022 Formula 2 championship and completing several F1 tests, Helmut Marko felt Liam Lawson needed to make one more move. The New Zealander will compete in Super Formula in Japan this year, where Pierre Gasly once did in the past. Lawson hopes to get a place at AlphaTauri after all. With a win in his first race, he has started well. GPblog spoke to the Red Bull junior in Azerbaijan.

Marko still believes in Lawson but felt it was time for another challenge after F2. Franz Tost was impressed by Lawson's performance in several tests for AlphaTauri, but Marko preferred to see Lawson at work in Super Formula. There, the cars are faster, physically more demanding and, above all, an English-speaking driver has to overcome a language barrier. Lawson seized that challenge with both hands.

Racing in Japan

"It is something very different, but so far, I'm enjoying it a lot. The car is a lot quicker than what I'm used to. I had very limited F1 experience, but after doing a couple of sessions, I expected it to be quite a big step down. It's similar to F2, but it's a lot faster than F2. It's nice to drive, the teams are bigger as well, so a bigger operation to learn as well is really, really good. But it's very different, obviously, being in Japan, the culture's very different, circuits are a lot different, and the drivers are very experienced. Some of them have done 10 seasons and more, they've been racing a long time, so it's been a very new experience.

"I think the main step is the speed. So in Formula 2, the speed difference to Formula 1 is so large. The way you drive the car is very, very different. In Formula 2 the car is quite heavy and it doesn't respond the same way. And then Super Formula, I feel like it bridges that gap to Formula 1 a lot. In high speed, honestly, like in sector 1 in Suzuka, for example, the Super Formula car feels very similar to a Formula 1 car. Basically, how the aero works, it's very high downforce. So it feels more like a Formula 1 spec car with Formula 2 power, let's say. It's got a lot less power than Formula 1.

The whole interview.

...

[CMSMJ1]

Good article Wouter - thanks for sharing. Super formula is cool - I thnk you can watch it on YouTube, right?

[dren]

Autosport saying Ricciardo had a seat fitting at AT.

[organic]

Autosport saying Ricciardo had a seat fitting at AT.

He is AT's reserve when Lawson's SF duties conflict with F1 calendar, so I imagine that the seat fit is just routine, not anything to do with a possible replacement.

But I could well be wrong. De vries has not lived up to what was expected of him. For someone as experienced, he should not be having a season like this if he truly was a talent worthy of F1 long term, and Marko may see benchmarking Riccardo as more valuable than de vries crashing every other weekend

[mendis]

Autosport saying Ricciardo had a seat fitting at AT.

He is AT's reserve when Lawson's SF duties conflict with F1 calendar, so I imagine that the seat fit is just routine, not anything to do with a possible replacement.

But I could well be wrong. De vries has not lived up to what was expected of him. For someone as experienced, he should not be having a season like this if he truly was a talent worthy of F1 long term, and Marko may see benchmarking Riccardo as more valuable than de vries crashing every other weekend

There are more speculations going around that a mid season replacement might be a possibility at AT and the obvious casualty is Devries. I was not impressed by him one bit so far.

[Wouter]

Ricciardo was having a seatfit because he has to test Pirelli tires in a couple of weeks in the AT. Thats all!
Every thing else is speculation.
He is in Italy this week because of the wedding of Chloe, Lance Stroll his sister, today in Venice. Perfect time to do the seatfit.

[dren]

Yes, speculation, but with the heat AT is getting for underperforming this year, I could see a midseason swap. RB/AT isn't shy of such a thing. I would write it off if it was a different team.

[Swed3121]

Wouldn’t be the first time Marko and co have done this.
Imo it would solve a few issues for them, Ricciardo would need an evaluation against a RB known quantity (yuki) to see if there is much hope for him. It would also get rid of the backache that Debris (DeVries) has become, has he had an accident free weekend yet?
It has always been clear that RB is willing to overlook a certain accident prone-ness of the driver is fast, so far DeVries has only proven the former quality.
I do sometimes wonder weather the grid was a little overzealous in signing DeVries after Monza, given his current Trackrecord

[AR3-GP]

Ricciardo was having a seatfit because he has to test Pirelli tires in a couple of weeks in the AT. Thats all!
Every thing else is speculation.
He is in Italy this week because of the wedding of Chloe, Lance Stroll his sister, today in Venice. Perfect time to do the seatfit.

He'll also be doing driving in the Red Bull. Why can't Lawson drive some? There were rumors about Lawson replacing Nyck, so maybe that's also hot air

[Wouter]

Ricciardo was having a seatfit because he has to test Pirelli tires in a couple of weeks in the AT. Thats all!
Every thing else is speculation.
He is in Italy this week because of the wedding of Chloe, Lance Stroll his sister, today in Venice. Perfect time to do the seatfit.

.
He'll also be doing driving in the Red Bull. Why can't Lawson drive some? There were rumors about Lawson replacing Nyck, so maybe that's also hot air

.
Gossip?:

[AR3-GP]

Ricciardo was having a seatfit because he has to test Pirelli tires in a couple of weeks in the AT. Thats all!
Every thing else is speculation.
He is in Italy this week because of the wedding of Chloe, Lance Stroll his sister, today in Venice. Perfect time to do the seatfit.

.
He'll also be doing driving in the Red Bull. Why can't Lawson drive some? There were rumors about Lawson replacing Nyck, so maybe that's also hot air

.

Then it would make sense to have Lawson conduct the tyre test for Alpha Tauri, not Daniel. I don't know what's true at the moment, but seems strange to let Daniel do all of the testing in both cars when they want to consider Lawson's potential.

[organic]

Is there a good source that says Daniel will be doing a tyre test for AT? why would he do one for both teams?

[ispano6]

Happy Birthday Yuki!



I love the Macross/Mospeada vibes!