What a season it was for AlphaTauri! They had to field 4 drivers this season, with three of them scoring points. Going by the start they had to the season, it seems a miracle that they managed to score as much as they did. However, thanks to several upgrades brought on, they managed to leapfrog Alfa Romeo and Haas to seal the 8th place in the championship.

However, this might not have all been the team’s own doing. Many pundits strongly believe that the team had external assistance to get to where they finished at the end of the season. While fans are speculating that there is a strong chance that the assistance came from Red Bull, there’s no official confirmation on this subject yet.

Ted Kravitz calls out AlphaTauri’s external assistance

During a recent “bonus episode” of the Sky Sports F1 Podcast, Ted Kravitz and David Croft joined hands to rate the 10 team principals this season. They had different parameters to score from, including team’s technical performance, HR and media appearances, etc.

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Talking about AlphaTauri’s team principal Franz Tost, Kravitz gave him a 5/10 on the technical performance side of things. Justifying this rating, he stated “The car was rubbish at the start of the year, it really wasn’t good, ask Nyck De Vries.” As the season went on, however, the team managed to bring on several key upgrades that paid dividends, especially in Mexico and Abu Dhabi, for the Italian outfit.

However, Kravitz refuses to give credit to Tost for these upgrades. “I know that car was upgraded a lot by the end of the season. It probably had more upgrades brought to the car than any other car. But I don’t think that was all coming from the AlphaTauri leadership. Quite frankly, there seemed to be a bit of helping hand out there, to me. While Franz [Tost] might have identified it, it doesn’t seem like an AlphaTauri thing, that’s all I’m going to say.”

While Kravitz didn’t specify exactly what he meant by external assistance, many have come to understand that he meant help from their parent team, Red Bull.

Shame for Nyck De Vries

Talking further about the AlphaTauri season, Kravitz also noted that it was a real shame that Nyck De Vries had to drive the AlphaTauri only in the first half of the season, when the car was really substandard. He mentioned, “I thought it was a real shame about Nyck De Vries. I am not saying Liam Lawson wasn’t brilliant, I am not saying Daniel Ricciardo wasn’t brilliant, but it was a real shame that Nyck De Vries had to drive Formula 1 in that car.” 

However, thanks to Ricciardo’s amazing performance at the Silverstone tire test and Yuki Tsunoda constantly outperforming De Vries, the dutchman had to settle with only 10 races in the season. Some even allege that De Vries was forced out only due to Ricciardo’s connections with the Red Bull leadership. 

Since then, Liam Lawson managed to score a point in the car, with Ricciardo managing six points in Mexico. This was almost enough for them to fight and secure 7th position in an intense battle against Williams, that they lost by 2 points.

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Do you think De Vries should have been given a longer rope? Let us know what you think.