F1 Team Factfile: AlphaTauri

As the 2021 season edges closer to starting we will be looking at each F1 team ahead of the new season. Next on the list, we have AlphaTauri who have stuck with Pierre Gasly but have promoted Yuki Tsunoda up from the Red Bull Driver Academy for the 2021 season.

AlphaTauri

After their first season in F1 since the name change from Toro Rosso to AlphaTauri, the Italian-based outfit have switched to a very young driver line-up this year with the hopes that they can learn and achieve together.

After only eight starts to the new era, they were able to get a victory. Pierre Gasly took home the race win at the 2020 Italian Grand Prix and the team will hope many more memories like these can come in the near future.

Pierre Gasly

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After the Frenchman stepped up to the elite level in 2017, his career has seen plenty of highs and also a lot of negatives and lows.

After a full year at Toro Rosso, Red Bull decided to promote the driver and pair him up with the main man, Max Verstappen.

A calamitous season in 2019 saw him demoted back to the sister team after his inexperienced showed, but it was the right choice for Pierre Gasly to go back to Toro Rosso/AlphaTauri and prove what Red Bull are missing.

Since his move back, he’s been on the podium twice and won his maiden race at the 2020 Italian Grand Prix. He’s been making the steps in the right direction and he will want the same to happen after a 10th place finish in the Driver’s Championship last year.

Yuki Tsunoda

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It’s taken approximately five or so years for the Japanese driver to achieve his goal and he has done so as he secured a seat at AlphaTauri replacing Daniil Kvyat.

Making his way from the Japanese F4 series to Europe has seen Tsunoda skyrocket through the ranks and after only a year in Formula Three, he made it into F2.

With the Carlin team, he achieved the Anthoine Hubert award for the best rookie from the 2020 season. Scoring 200 points and finishing third in the Driver’s Championship it was clear that he deserved a seat in the prestigious F1 after only a couple of seasons in single-seaters.

He will have a lot to prove for the AlphaTauri outfit but is undeniably quick and very good at overtaking which he will take into this season as an added bonus up his sleeve of all the tricks he possesses.

Prediction for the season

With young drivers in Gasly and Tsunoda the team will want to prove a point and battle higher up the midfield and the ability to score consistent points.

After finishing seventh and only ahead of bottom teams Alfa Romeo, Haas and Williams, determination will be high for Tsunoda to prove his speed in the sport and for Gasly to improve and prove that the race win was not a fluke.

Gasly will want to perform another fantastic season for AlphaTauri as they seem the outfit that get all the best aspects out of the Frenchman’s driving style.

10th last season with a win. The 25-year-old will want nothing less than his points tally of 75 points and will be looking to push the likes of McLaren, Alpine and Aston Martin to get the most out of his machinery.

Tsunoda’s first season will be one of getting used to the machinery, but from what we have seen of his very short career he uses the first races to get used to things and goes into things full-throttle after that.

His speed and overtaking ability were unrivalled last year in F2 and if that’s what we can expect from the Japanese driver this year in the top tier then AlphaTauri may have picked up a fantastic talent in the 20-year-old.

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