How AlphaTauri has adapted to F1's new rules

"Launch, but make it fashion" was seemingly the mantra of AlphaTauri's reveal of its AT02, as its newly reliveried Formula 1 car had to share a Salzburg showroom with the namesake fashion brand's entire autumn and winter catalogue. Undoubtedly, those working on the car will hope that it remains useful in the spring and summer as well...

Look, we'll level with you here. There's only about two or three things visually different on the AT02 renders compared to last year, not including the greater quantity of navy blue that now fills the front half of the car too, with white relegated to the lower reaches of the bodywork. AlphaTauri, and the team under its Toro Rosso guise, does not miss a beat with its livery options. Given its identity is its own product, the team doesn't have to acquiesce to commercial requests to fill the designs with incongruous shapes and colours. In other words, everything fits just so.

But then we stumble across the problem of launch cars, in which this author perennially complains into the void despite understanding that teams do not want to leave all cards on the table. The images of the 'new' AlphaTauri will hence serve as an exercise to work out which parts of the car stay, and which parts we imagine might look a little different come Bahrain testing.

There are new bargeboards, aft of the whited-out main panels. AlphaTauri usually keeps those sidepod-mounted contraptions rather simple, but has elected to upgrade to the Venetian blind-style array of deflectors seen sporadically up and down the grid. Perhaps the increased complexity leads into the new floor, where the team has explored a design yet to be seen within the confines of the end-of-season practice sessions in which a smattering of outfits prepared for 2021.

Here, towards the tapered-in back section, the floor's edge has been raised - much as it has been further forward where the exclusion zone does not apply. It's only a small lip, but as the airflow will tend to drift outwards in that zone anyway, adding that lip may yield a little downforce boost. It'll be interesting to see what the development curve for that floor design is, especially within the confines of the rules, but it's a neat idea.

Further forward of that, it has a larger lip and a small deflector to kick airflow outwards and perhaps find downforce in the mid-section, before the floor squares off slightly before the second scroll.

Comparing the launch cars, the AT02 does have noticeably larger front brake ducts compared to the AT01, but this falls in line with updates over 2020 and its shift towards following the lead Red Bull team and its beefier inlets at the front. This is surrounded by the retention of the same rear suspension package, which Red Bull ran in 2019, as AlphaTauri has elected to stick rather than twist with the parts it buys in.

At the front, Red Bull had moved from a split upper wishbone to breaking up the lower wishbone, seemingly to experiment with changing the ride heights at certain steering angles to boost mid-corner downforce.

"How fast will our car be? It's not something I would want to put an exact number to just yet. Taking everything into account, I would say we will probably see a performance level similar to that seen mid-2020" Jody Egginton

But although Red Bull made that move, AlphaTauri has kept the split upper wishbone, at least according to the renders. An anomaly in the token system meant that customer teams could upgrade to parts homologated in 2020 without having to spend tokens to do so, but that would likely include a knock-on effect on other components, and technical director Jody Egginton explained that the team's tokens went elsewhere.

"For 2021, we have elected to continue with the same rear suspension and gearbox design as we used in 2020," Egginton said. "We've elected to use our two tokens for a new nose and also redesigned the outboard front suspension, as a result of this we have elected to update some Red Bull Technology-supplied steering components to 2020 specification, as permitted by the technical regulations."

So, perhaps the launch renders contradict that slightly. Having stared at them for some time, the AT01 and AT02 overlay perfectly in that particular area - and on the nose that Egginton mentions. Either the differences are minor, or perhaps AlphaTauri's renderer-in-chief is not entirely being honest with us.

The tokens for the new nose pertain to the crash structure, which may be redefined and rehomologated for 2021 at the expense of two shiny tokens. For the last few seasons, AlphaTauri has used the thumb-tip structure and opted for a wider nose body, while other teams have gravitated towards a thinner nose structure. It may be that this is the intention and that the team has condensed the crash structure to be able to do that, but equally this may be wishful thinking.

But with the mandated changes, including the cut to the floor, diffuser, and rear brake duct winglets, adding up to a reduction of around 10% of the overall downforce seen at the end of last year, has AlphaTauri been hurt by the changes?

Encouragingly, Egginton suggests that the team will get to a level seen in the middle of last year, which coyly suggests that AlphaTauri's team has got on top of the new changes. However, there are other areas other than "headline numbers" to consider, as Egginton explained.

"The headline aero numbers have been affected by the aero change," he said, "but we have been working really hard to recover the lost performance and also improve the aero dynamic operating window for the car. How fast will our car be? It's not something I would want to put an exact number to just yet. Overall, taking everything into account, I would say we will probably see a performance level similar to that seen mid-2020."

The 2021 season also marks the final year of Honda's umpteenth spell in F1 - having been in and out more times than Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante has left and rejoined the band. Red Bull has set up a new powertrains division to supply its parent team and AlphaTauri from 2022 onwards, but Honda has kept to its part of the bargain and developed a new power unit for 2021. It will continue to develop the power unit to ensure that, when Red Bull picks up the baton, it remains competitive.

Egginton says that Red Bull's desire to retain continuity with the Honda-designed PU is "great news" and avoids problems down the line of having to deviate from its packaging philosophy by having to accommodate a customer powertrain.

"Effectively, Honda is giving us a new power unit for this year and have taken the opportunity to develop the packaging around it. Honda is very determined to push right to the end of 2021 and we are sure the power unit will continue to provide all that is required from it."

"We've been very happy with the Honda power units supplied to us over the last few years and I believe we can continue to race competitively using them, so this announcement is really great news for the team.

"It's a huge commitment from Red Bull to make but it will allow both Scuderia AlphaTauri and Red Bull Racing to remain competitive by using a PU that we're already very comfortable with. As a customer team you often have to make compromises - such as to the chassis - that can inhibit the true performance of a car, so retaining the PU in-house allows us to maintain the best possible package."

"Effectively, Honda is giving us a new power unit for this year and have taken the opportunity to develop the packaging around it. Honda is very determined to push right to the end of 2021" Jody Egginton

If we're interpreting Egginton's clues correctly, then the AlphaTauri AT02 may look a little different by Bahrain testing. Regardless, the growth of AlphaTauri into a genuine midfield contender looks set to continue into 2021, and now-lead driver Pierre Gasly looks set to go from strength to strength owing to continuity with the same team. Rookie driver Yuki Tsunoda, if he can continue to build on his rapid ascent from Japanese Formula 4 to F1 in just three seasons, has the talent to give Gasly more than a run for his money.

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There are lots of reasons to be hopeful of AlphaTauri's chances this year, and if any of the traditional midfield runners makes a misstep with the altered rules package, the Anglo-Italian squad will be sure to fill in the gaps.

But for now, given the car launch coincided with a new range of clothing, we'll leave it there to go and hunt for a new coat...