Daniel Ricciardo a sign of major Red Bull change as AlphaTauri chief speaks out

08 December 2023 , 16:36

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Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo form an unusually experienced AlphaTauri driver line-up (Image: Getty Images)

AlphaTauri will move away from its traditional status as the unofficial feeder team to Red Bull, new chief executive Peter Bayer has declared.

The team which used to be named Toro Rosso has been part of the Red Bull operation since it was bought by the energy drinks giant in 2006. And a significant part of its purpose has been to blood talented young drivers in Formula 1 before moving them up to the main Red Bull Racing team.

Quite often, this has meant the team has fielded two relatively inexperienced racers at the same time. But that is not currently the case with 34-year-old Daniel Ricciardo leading the charge alongside Yuki Tsunoda, who now has three full years in F1 under his belt.

The team is going into the next era of its history, with a different, unconfirmed name for the 2024 season and a new leadership team in place. Bayer is already in his role as CEO while incoming team principal Laurent Mekies will officially join in a few weeks.

And the team plans to do things differently with its drivers, too. "We certainly will not be a B-team," insisted Bayer, speaking to RacingNews365 about the future of Red Bull's flagging second F1 project.

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"But I think we'll still try to fulfil one of the other strategic directives, which is to fulfil the junior development program, but we'll do it slightly differently. We will not race with two juniors, we will always have one experienced driver who will take one young driver under his wings and help him to develop."

Both of AlphaTauri's current drivers are far from rookies. But Ricciardo is still clearly the elder statesman of the team and Tsunoda has said himself on many occasions this year that he is learning a lot from being able to watch the Aussie up close and study his data.

Ricciardo has made no secret of his desire to return to the Red Bull seat he once held before he retires from F1. But he also recently told Mirror Sport that he will be content at AlphaTauri if that does not happen - and Bayer is very pleased with the options the team currently has at its disposal.

He added: "We see it actually works. Yuki is not a junior anymore, to be honest. But compared to Daniel he is. We see the positive impact it has on both, we see how much Yuki can learn from Daniel, we see how much we can learn from Daniel in terms of set up of the car and even in terms of strategy, sometimes he would come up with an idea while he's in the car.

"For us to be to be competitive, that certainly is the way forward. It's a request from the shareholders to focus on competitiveness because competitiveness will help us also to commercially balance and reduce their obvious injection into the team."

Daniel Moxon