AlphaTauri plan continual upgrades in opening races

AlphaTauri technical director Jody Egginton has revealed the team expects to benefit from a continual rollout of upgrades across the next three race weekends of the Formula 1 season.

AlphaTauri took the plaudits after pre-season testing with rookie Yuki Tsunoda setting the second-fastest time of the three-day test in Bahrain.

At the season-opener, which also took place at the Bahrain International Circuit, the team backed up this pace with Pierre Gasly qualifying fifth and escaping Q2 on the harder, medium compound tyre.

AlphaTauri appears to have been hampered less than other teams by the aerodynamic changes made to the cars over the winter due to its high-rake design but Egginton commented the team will not slow development by overly enjoying its current pace.

He said: “I think we’ve got a good view of what the car is and that allows you to say, ‘Right, what do we want to target?’.

“It’s aero development, it’s exploiting more performance from the areas of the car which have been affected by the regulation changes and making sure the changes, as we develop that, we don’t upset something else really. It’s just rolling development.

“We’ll have some new bits at Imola, we’ll have some new bits in Portugal and we’ll have some new bits in Spain so it’s this incremental – there are no headline grabbers by spraying we should have a nice step forward.”

Despite enjoying promising pace, AlphaTauri left Bahrain disappointed with its points total of just two, both registered by Yuki Tsunoda for finishing ninth.

Gasly had been involved in early contact with McLaren's Daniel Ricciardo following a safety car restart. An enforced pit stop to fit a new front wing and floor damage caused by the incident restricted the Frenchman's progress and he eventually retired four laps from the flag.

Explaining what AlphaTauri hopes to see with its upgrades, Egginton added: "The floors have changed dramatically because of the regulation change and the diffuser and the way the car works aerodynamically at the rear. Everyone was trying to recover load, we recovered a reasonable chunk of load.

"Now we’re trying to work on increasing the operating window, giving the car a wider operating window aerodynamically to work in, especially in low speed. The driver will exploit that and we’ll go quicker."

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