The antithesis of its dominant sister bull squad

The team picture

• Constructors standing: P9, 35 points

The spark has been missing at AlphaTauri this season. Last year they were solidly in the midfield in sixth place in the final standings with an impressive 142 points. This year they're second from last with just a fraction of that tally. Given that their sister team Red Bull was romping to victory in race after race, it's somewhat inexplicable to see what's gone quite so wrong.

Clearly the new AT03 didn't get to grips with the new ground effect aerodynamics to anything like the same degree that the Adrian Newey-designed RB18 did. But overall it just seemed that the air had been let out of the squad this season, leaving them looking flat and uninspired.

Last year they had Pierre Gasly performing strongly above and beyond the call of duty, but not this time. He seemed rather ordinary this season, and appeared increasingly disgruntled with the team in public. Despite having just signed a contract extension with the squad, he couldn't move fast enough when offered the chance to depart to Alpine next year instead - which speaks volumes about the current feeling within the squad.

The driver line-up

• Pierre Gasly: P14, 23 points
• Yuki Tsunoda: P17, 12 points

Last year, Pierre Gasly amassed 110 points; this season he's managed less than a quarter of that, and struggled at times to out-perform his team mate Yuki Tsunoda in the latter's sophomore season. Gasly finished in the points on just six occasions with a best result of fifth place in Azerbaijan, but overall beat Tsunoda in 15 of the 22 races that one or both drivers finished.

Tsunoda was ahead of Gasly in the number of DNFs (six to Gasly's three), and was closer to the Frenchman in terms of qualifying performances: Gasly started ahead of Tsunoda in 13 races compared to nine for the Japanese driver/ Gasly's best start was sixth in Italy, while Tsunoda was eighth on the grid in Azerbaijan and France.

That's all a lot closer than it had been the previous year, but unfortunately it wasn't really down to any discernible improvement on Tsunoda's part, who is probably feeling rather lucky to have been gifted a third season at Faenza on the basis of this campaign.

How 2023 is looking for AlphaTauri

Do the powers that be at AlphaTauri have a plan to bring them out of this current deep malaise? There's no sign of one, but then again Franz Tost and his senior management tend to play things close to their chest at the best of times. Right now it looks like they're just hunkering down and seeing out the next few seasons in the hope that the 2026 engine changes will give them a new chance.

There's also the question of the team's future now that team owner Dieter Mateschitz has passed away. What will the new management at the parent Red Bull company decide to do with the team? It's not even serving its traditional role as a sandbox to try out the latest talent from the Red Bull young driver programme. In fact, all in all, AlphaTauri is looking a bit of a spare wheel right now.

Maybe the arrival of Nyck de Vries can restore some energy and purpose to the team. But that's asking an awful lot of a rookie, even one who has been a Formula E world champion in the past.

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