“Our engineers have developed a good car” – AlphaTauri’s Franz Tost

It was a disappointing final day to testing for Scuderia AlphaTauri at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, after a spin for Pierre Gasly resulted in no afternoon running for the team or for Yuki Tsunoda.

The official shakedown overall went particularly well for AlphaTauri, however the final day woes may leave the team slightly disappointed as they head to the official test in Bahrain. The damage to the AT03 was caused by Gasly, who spun-off at Turn 5 after locking up his fronts. The damage caused was too much for the engineers to repair, meaning Tsunoda was unable to feature in the afternoon session.

It’s still been a fairly successful three days for the Italian’s, with both drivers completing a combined total of 308 laps, giving the team plenty of data to dissect ahead of the official pre-season test.

Team Principal Franz Tost believes it’s been a good test for the team despite the unfortunate ending and that his engineers have built a brilliant car.

“The first test here in Barcelona with the AT03 has been really positive. I think that our engineers have developed a good car, that seems to be both fast and reliable. We have managed to complete many laps with both Yuki and Pierre, and I think that we have a really strong foundation for the year. Unfortunately, today Pierre had a lock-up of the front tyres, which meant he spun off at corner five, therefore we lost a lot of running time and Yuki was unable to run this afternoon.

“Across these three days we have completed 308 laps (1,439.9km) and I think this is a good basis for the next test in Bahrain. We’ve collected a lot of data here in Barcelona, which should also help to build up a good correlation between CFD and the wind-tunnel, which should be a proper baseline for future development steps. We will of course change some smaller things for Bahrain, but we have a good groundwork for the next test.”