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AlphaTauri lands new marketing head to boost team fortunes

AlphaTauri has created a new 'head of commercial' position within the team's management, as the squad strives to shore up its finances with the operation's continued existence believed to in question.

Rumours have been circulating that the parent Red Bull energy drinks company sees AlphaTauri as being too expensive for the relatively little it achieves on the track and is exploring various cost-cutting options.

Team boss Franz Tost last week denied rumours in the German media that Red Bull is exploring options to sell AlphaTauri in the wake of the death of founder Dietrich Mateschitz last year.

Read also: AlphaTauri dispels rumors of team's sale by Red Bull

One way of bolstering AlphaTauri's position would be to improve its financial position through more effective marketing, which will be the focus for Lars Stegelmann whose appointment was announced this week.

Stegelmann was previously chief commercial officer of the Motorsport Network, and later managed the sales team at ITR, the DTM Series organiser until 2022.

He also worked on the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and the European football association UEFA, and the original sales and marketing concept, development and implementation of the all-electric ABB FIA Formula E championship.

"Interest in Formula 1 has developed extremely well," Tost explained. "With the support of Lars, we also want to develop our commercial activities,

"He has an exciting mix of strategic know-how, international sales experience and a great understanding of the advertising industry."

For his part, Stegelmann agreed that "Formula 1 is booming and is offering companies excellent activation and communication opportunities, premium hospitality and awareness on a global scale like no other sport series.

"The various stakeholders, especially the advertisers and agencies, have been my clients for many years," he added. "I look forward to making my contribution to further global development."

"The positioning of Scuderia AlphaTauri fits perfectly into the current times and offers a first-class platform for companies that want to appear modern, young and dynamic, digital, design and technology-oriented."

Among the possible cost-cutting options believed to be under discussion is relocating the team from Faenza to the UK to benefit from integrating back office services with the senior Red Bull Racing squad at Milton Keynes.

So far this season, AlphaTauri is one of only two teams (along with McLaren) nopt to score any championship points in the first two round sof the year in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

Yuki Tsunoda has twice finished just outside the top ten in P11, while new signing Nyck de Vries has been 14th at the end of both races.

A clearly frustrated Tost said last week that he 'no longer trusted' the team's engineers after the AT04 failed to live up to their predictions of pace and performance.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.