AlphaTauri hoping improved reliability will allow entry to midfield battle

AlphaTauri team principal Franz Tost has insisted his team must minimise retirements this year if it is to climb the constructors' table.

The team retired four times between drivers Pierre Gasly and Daniil Kvyat, although AlphaTauri did finish the year seventh with its largest points haul to date when including its Toro Rosso days.

But keen to improve upon the success of breaking the 100 point barrier for the first time in the team's history, Tost is hoping to improve reliability ahead of the new season.

"I can’t forget that we retired four times, three of them due to reliability issues and once because of an accident Pierre was involved in, which means we missed four opportunities to score points," he said.

"We definitely have to avoid finding ourselves in certain situations, so there is still some work to do ahead of us but the team is focussing on this to prepare in the best possible way for the new season.

"I hope that the new car will be as good as we expect it to be because if our drivers get a competitive car I think we can have an even better season this year.”

Gasly, who took his maiden victory at the Italian Grand Prix last year, remains with the team this season and will act as the senior figure in the team with former F2 race winner Yuki Tsunoda promoted in place of Kvyat.

Reflecting on the improvements made last year, Tost added: “We had a reasonably good season in our first year as Scuderia AlphaTauri and we improved in many aspects.

"The aerodynamic side has made good steps in the right direction but also the design office enhanced all procedures to smoothen the workflow and achieve targets better and quicker.

"On the operational side, we have again made a big step forward and had very fast pitstops, which helped us to achieve quite good results throughout the year.

"Thanks to all this work we could achieve the highlight of our season in Monza, with Pierre's maiden victory."

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