Alpha Tauri warn top teams still hold an advantage despite F1 cost cap

Alpha Tauri team principal Franz Tost believes the recently introduced cost cap will do little to bridge the gap between F1 teams across the grid. He believes that despite the shrinking budget cap, top teams still hold an advantage over smaller outfits due to their legacy investments in crucial infrastructure.

Speaking in a post-season interview with the Dutch edition of Motorsport.com, Tost said:

“I think that there we still have some deficiencies. We still have to work on the infrastructure. Simulation tools are getting more and more important, because we are running less at the track. We have a good budget, but we were never in a position to invest so much money for simulation tools. They invested millions in the last few years, we simply don’t have that.”

Tost has revealed that since many of the top teams have world-class infrastructure and cutting-edge simulator tools, they will have a considerable advantage over smaller outfits in the near future.

Teams such as Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull in particular have invested hundreds of millions of dollars over the last decade in search of marginal gains over their rivals. Meanwhile, smaller F1 teams such as Williams, Alpha Tauri and Haas have lacked such facilities and have relied on their supplier teams for crucial infrastructure.

Aston Martin has long utilized Mercedes’ wind tunnel throughout its existence, as building its own would have been astronomically expensive. In recent years, however, many teams including Alpha Tauri, McLaren and Aston Martin have been investing in upgrading their facilities to “catch up” with the rest of the grid.

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Alpha Tauri wary of competition in 2022 F1 season amid regulation overhaul

Franz Tost is unsure of his team’s competitiveness ahead of the 2022 season when F1 is set for a reset to technical regulations. The veteran team boss has revealed that his team has been working hard to bring in a good car, despite being unable to take on parts from the senior Red Bull team.

Speaking in the same interview with Motorsport.com, Tost said:

“It’s a very unknown story because it’s completely new everything. I trust our engineers because they have built two good cars. The aero group is doing a very good job and they are going in the right direction. We don’t have any comparisons with others. I just hope that we go in the right direction. Where we then really end up, I don’t know. But I trust our team.”

Tost says that teams, especially smaller outfits, cannot afford to make a mistake and hope for a competitive car. Misinterpreting the new regulations could make the difference between success and a disastrous failure.