Jody Egginton, technical director at AlphaTauri, thinks he knows how to make his team more competitive again. According to the British engineer, it is especially important to start the 2024 season with a good basis, in order to avoid a similar season to 2023.
In addition to plans to work even closer with sister team Red Bull and to use more parts from the Austrian racing team’s factory for the 2024 season, technical director Egginton suggests that his team can also make more profits in another way. “We want to continue on the path of progress we started in the second half of the year (2023, ed.),” the British engineer told Autosport.
The Italian team managed to reach the top ten a number of times in the last few races of the season, thus gaining the necessary points for the constructors’ championship. Still, Egginton hopes that AlphaTauri can achieve even more. “The goal is to achieve something similar to what we achieved in 2020 to 2021. We’ve done it before, and we just need a solid winter and a flying start.”
Egginton wants to get back to 2021 consistency
According to Egginton, the car will help develop in a ‘slightly more structured way’ to achieve the consistency that the team also had in 2021. ‘Last year (2023, ed.) everyone in the team was busy getting everything to the car as quickly as possible, and that’s what you want to do in Formula 1. But we want to be able to take a more measured and consistent approach . And if the car comes out a bit stronger at the start of the season, we can refine the approach we want to do and that will be a good measure of the progress we are making.”
Although AlphaTauri showed during the 2023 season that it had what it takes to fight back after a disappointing start, it is clear to Egginton that it is much better for teams to have a more structured approach to further development during a season . “Sometimes it’s good to take a breath and say, ‘Wait a minute, we did our best to get back to where we wanted to be.’ But everyone also improves during the season. So on top of where you want to be for the first race, you also have to keep going.”
According to Egginton, AlphaTauri did a better job in 2021, and he hopes his team can do something similar in 2024. “In 2021, we hit the ground running and had a good, solid season and were consistent.”
