AlphaTauri has revealed the first pictures of its new Formula 1 car for the 2022 season.
The AT03 will be driven by Pierre Gasly, who is beginning his fifth full season as an F1 driver, and Yuki Tsunoda, who made his grand prix debut last year.AlphaTauri finished sixth in the championship last year. The team will continue to use the same Honda-developed engines as Red Bull this year, now prepared and supplied by Honda Performance Development, following the manufacturer’s official withdrawal from F1.
The renderings of the new car were presented in a launch video incorporating the Red Bull fashion brand the team is named after.
“We hope that this package will be very strong, following last year’s success,” said team principal Franz Tost. “Once again, we have worked closely with AlphaTauri to launch our new car and I think we’ve managed to deliver something very special.”
The team’s technical director Jody Egginton believes the team is on an upward slope aftrer increasing its points haul from 107 points in 2020 to 142 last year.
“We’ve been developing the process of how we work for the last two to three years and we’ve applied that to this car as well. Statistically and from the results we’ve had in the last period, we’ve been reasonably successful, so I would say we’re on the right trajectory in terms of how we are operating.
“However, it’s not as simple as that as it’s a clean sheet of paper for 2022 which provides potential rewards but also carries risk. The rate at which the car is being developed is a key metric but an important question is, how far are we down the ‘development’ road relative to the competition? You don’t really get to know that until the first race of the season when the gloves come off.”
Pictures: 2022 AlphaTauri AT03
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: 2022 AlphaTauri drivers’ helmets
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2022 F1 season
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Kribana (@krichelle)
14th February 2022, 11:07
This team does know how to paint and decorate their cars…
OOliver
14th February 2022, 11:28
The design is too busy.
GeeMac (@geemac)
14th February 2022, 12:28
It’s remarkably clean for a modern F1 car I think. Compared to the McLaren it looks really good.
Renee (@renee)
15th February 2022, 0:00
I also think it’s too busy. Especially as the livery has too much details for only 2 colors. The sponsors and logos make for too much changes back and forth for only 2 colors. If your eye, in a glance, slides from the nose to the tail of the car, it becomes an indistinguishable mess of blue-white-blue-white-blue-white-blue-white… It need’s different areas or logos to be more clearly defined. Maybe with more colors or a different layout if only 2 colors.
McLaren is great just for that. Clearly different elements that guide your eyes and help them to fixate on something contrasting.
Dex
14th February 2022, 13:54
My impression was exactly the opposite, such a classy, slightly understated and nicely balanced design. I also like the already well known combination of colours. The best looking car so far, speaking of my taste of course. Too bad Williams, for example, didn’t follow this route lately.
amian
14th February 2022, 14:06
It looks great to me! The entire scheme is clean and the colour shapes and lines are meaningful!
McLaren’s livery is an eyesore, this one is a bullseye.
Jere (@jerejj)
14th February 2022, 11:09
Predominantly the same color scheme, although mostly white rear wing.
Interestingly, the front-end looks similar to RB18.
Sam Crawford
14th February 2022, 11:12
The Red Bull front end was essentially a dummy car
Sam Crawford
14th February 2022, 11:10
The square sidepod inlets, do they feed directly into the floor?
someone or something
14th February 2022, 11:40
Wouldn’t make sense, if I’m not completely mistaken. The floor’s job is to suck the car to the ground by creating negative pressure. In other words: by allowing as little air as possible to get (and, to the extent it cannot be avoided, stay) under the floor. Feeding more air into the system would achieve the exact opposite.
erikje
14th February 2022, 12:42
Not always.
It’s possible to create a underpressure by speeding up the airspeed. Feeding extra air increasing the speed could do the trick.
Srdjan Mandic (@srga91)
14th February 2022, 13:38
Only if you can get enough air through to sufficiently cool the engine.
The only way it might work is to divide the airflow direction inside the sidepods (if actually possibile) to channel it partially to the floor and partially to the engine.
Cooling the engine just through the airbox and radiator vents on top of the sidepods won’t be enough. The risk of overheating the PU, especially when running behind another car, would be too high.
erikje
14th February 2022, 14:20
This is not about cooling but creating a venturi effect to increase the airspeed and creating underpressure under the floor.
Srdjan Mandic (@srga91)
14th February 2022, 15:20
You misunderstood my point. I am aware that teams might use part of the air coming into the sidepod air intakes to channel it to the floor in order to create an underpressure area under the floor, which sucks the car to the ground.
However, I think there are limitations to that, because the PU needs air too, in order to cool certain components of its system (not just the combustion engine, but the electronic parts as well). I can’t imagine the air coming through the air box and the radiator vents is going to sufficiently cool these parts.
Teams will only be able to use that air, if they are confident enough in the rest of their cooling package (especially under high ambient temperatures). The testing sessions in Bahrain should give them a good picture of how much cooling their cars actually require. Some might have to find ways to increase the airflow towards the PU, while others might be able to channel more of it towards the floor/diffuser.
cduk_mugello (@cduk_mugello)
14th February 2022, 11:16
Strong Tyrrell 019 vibes
Jackattack
14th February 2022, 12:07
You mean when Jean in an almost-Rothmans livery rocked Ayrton in Phoenix?
Barry Bens (@barryfromdownunder)
14th February 2022, 11:17
Meh. So far only Aston Martin blew me away.
Mansell Fan
14th February 2022, 12:05
+1
Pinak Ghosh (@pinakghosh)
14th February 2022, 13:38
Agreed. AM this year is very distinct.
Martin (@f1hornet)
14th February 2022, 11:40
The car certainly looks better than their drab clothes.
OOliver
14th February 2022, 11:44
They also managed to make the car look like one lump of coal.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
14th February 2022, 19:53
The blue looks really dull in those renderings, like a Sauber from 8 years ago. Hope it’s a bit brighter on telly or it won’t stand out from an Aston or (depending what colour they are) Mercedes or Williams.
PMccarthy_is_a_legend (@pmccarthy_is_a_legend)
14th February 2022, 11:40
If these renders are anything like the real car, I think we are starting to see a couple of different ways teams chose to deal with the sodepods in this new generation of cars. AT and AM both feature a very aggressive undercuts in the sodepods to channel air through to the back of the car.
McLaren chose to bring sodepods forward as much as the regulations allow and instead, shorten this sidepods as early as possible to accentuate the coke bottle shape towards the rear.
It’s interesting to see different approaches early on with the rules as tight as they are.
bosyber (@bosyber)
14th February 2022, 21:39
@pmccarthy_is_a_legendI I wonder whether Torro Rosso’s 2011 experience with a similar ‘double floor’ concept helped inform their choice this season, which would be a sort of validation of the idea. Wonder whether Williams, who had something like that in 2018, also go this way.
bosyber (@bosyber)
14th February 2022, 21:43
@pmccarthy_is_a_legend sorry, typo
erikje
14th February 2022, 11:53
For now the most complete and balanced design.
Very nice indeed.
Much better then Aston M and Mclaren so far.
David BR (@david-br)
14th February 2022, 13:35
I agree erikje. I wonder how much the Alpha Tauri design here might reflect the ‘real’ Red Bull design? The long ‘rakish’ sweep down seems to be very Red Bull-ish. Looks good.
Olivier
14th February 2022, 13:38
I agree. It is a coherent livery indeed, both in design as in message. It is a design masterclass to Mclaren and Aston Martin on how to deliver a classic looking modern livery.
A solid 7/10
Ciaran (@ciaran)
14th February 2022, 12:06
The most interesting thing about this reveal is how the entire livestream viewership were shocked – shocked! – to be shown the car after a single short video rather than 30 minutes of corporate claptrap! The car looks good as well ;)
David BR (@david-br)
14th February 2022, 14:22
Companies (PR) should ask themselves, if we put this available as a download link (like ‘click here for corporate claptrap’) would anyone actually click? No! right? So don’t do make it deliberately non-optional! Sitting through this rubbish just makes you hostile to whatever they’re trying to ‘sell.’ Same goes for all the institutional nonsense before FIA, FIFA presentations etc. Nobody wants to know, just stop doing it.
Jackattack
14th February 2022, 12:09
Smeels like 2006 Williams.
Bradders (@bradders)
14th February 2022, 12:17
Absolute dogs dinner of a livery.
kpcart
14th February 2022, 12:21
Nah looks ok.
kpcart
14th February 2022, 12:22
What are you feeding your dog? Don’t hurt the poor animal
kpcart
14th February 2022, 12:20
Big snow plough front wing
Konstantinos
14th February 2022, 22:51
Snow races, now that’s an idea…
pastaman
14th February 2022, 13:01
What are the chances the photo gallery on this site gets brought into 2022 as well?
hahostolze (@hahostolze)
14th February 2022, 13:07
Those sidepods, wow!
Dutchguy (@justarandomdutchguy)
14th February 2022, 13:25
Looking sharp. Colour scheme is a massive improvement after last year. Sidepods look intresting.
Pinak Ghosh (@pinakghosh)
14th February 2022, 13:36
From the top and front shots, it seems a lot of work is done on the floor below the sidepods and the area is significantly busy compared to other cars. Lets hope the ground effect together with simplified front wings work.
David BR (@david-br)
14th February 2022, 13:37
Nice. Looks streamlined, aggressive and simple (sans fussy aero).
mmertens (@mmertens)
14th February 2022, 13:46
Nice livery. I didn’t like the front view of the car, the alpha and Tauri are huge, really distorted and the fact of tha tauri is in bold letters doesn’t help either. Other than that I like it, reminds me of Parmalat era Brabham . I will miss the white rims too.
dot_com (@dot_com)
14th February 2022, 13:50
I’m really liking how the new cars look. It seems as though the shape of the 2022 cars allows for much better flow of the livery design. The liveries in general seem more congruent with the lines of the cars.
graham228221 (@graham228221)
14th February 2022, 14:31
Is it just me, or does this livery somehow make the car seem smaller? Particularly the side view, it just seems a much more reasonable proportion than other modern boat-like F1 cars. Is it something to do with the simple colours and likes, or the bigger text on the sidepods perhaps?
Maciek (@maciek)
14th February 2022, 14:31
Best looking car so far
Leroy (@g-funk)
14th February 2022, 15:06
Did AT say how much they expect this will change before testing and the first race? Just looking at the front wing, it seems like this could be an early prototype as the bottom element is attached to the nosecone while AM and McLaren have detached bottom elements on their front wings. The attached bottom element is only seen on the RB and FIA prototypes. And they also look like the front wing isn’t taking up the whole legality box allowed as the AM front wing does.
Should be interesting to see how the cars evolve as the season starts.
The Dolphins
14th February 2022, 15:31
Nobody seems to be disclosing where on their rear wing the upper element is “cut” to allow the DRS to function. I would have thought the rules would be pretty prescriptive of this but given so much secrecy I imagine there will be some interesting developments in the top element-to-endplate transition.
The Dolphins
14th February 2022, 15:35
The Aston Martin shakedown gallery is one example of where it’s clearly visible and the design seems rudimentary.
Alonso
14th February 2022, 15:56
All cars so far looks like pretty the same… new regulations leaves almost no room for engineers to create their own desings, F1 is too close to become a monochasis category
Ben (@scuderia29)
14th February 2022, 16:45
The livery looks outdated before the seasons even started, square side pods look cool though
Biggsy
14th February 2022, 18:26
What’s with the dejected Incredible Sulks in the background?
Hiland (@flyingferrarim)
14th February 2022, 18:39
Really enjoyed the presentation a lot… made it seem like a their own take on the old Star Gate tv series. Anyways, the car looks good and very similar to last season’s car livery which was nice anyways. So far, livery wise, Aston Martin looks the best. I think the McLaren looks the least interesting (I think that thick black line running down the side ruins it for me) and kinda looks a bit like the old Arrows F1 livery if you remove the blue.
ryanoceros (@ryanoceros)
14th February 2022, 19:48
Not as good looking as the 2021 livery though. The “Tauri” on the front wing looks bad. It looks as if they made an old livery work on the new car and it didn’t.
Also – what is with the weirdos in the background wearing, anoraks, gym clothes, and what’s that – a yellow tarpaulin? Are these new team hires going through some kind of hazing? I didn’t watch the launch but am curious what is going on there
Robert
14th February 2022, 19:53
It’s interesting that every team so far have black wheel covers, camouflaging the bigger wheels. I would have expected at least some teams to accentuate the larger rim with a brighter color, at least around the rim edge.