AlphaTauri's head of vehicle performance Guillaume Dezoteux says that the team's forthcoming upgrade package scheduled for next week's race in Imola should prove to be a significant step forward.
The team has had a poor start to the year, failing to score points in three of the first five races and Yuki Tsunoda finishing in tenth place in Melbourne in Baku leaving the squad in ninth place n the constructors standings.
That prompted scathing comments about team principal Franz Tost about no longer trusting what his engineers were telling him about the potential of the AT04, and the sudden departure of head of aerodynamics Dickon Balmforth.
"The development direction of the cars has changed," Dezoteux acknowledged when asked about the impact of Balmforth's abrupt exit. "We are changing a little the weightings on where we want to develop the car."
And Dezoteux was also happy that Tost himself has now rolled back on his harsh comments. "Franz is very supportive of the group of engineers he has around him," he said. "He's just keen to see good results, like we all are."
It has since been confirmed that Tost will step down from his role at the end of the season, handing over the keys to Faenza to current Ferrari sporting director Laurent Mekies.
But in the meantime there is still a lot of work involved in getting the team back on track in 2023, with Dezoteux confident that a new floor upgrade for next weekend's Emilia Romagna Grand Prix will play a major role.
"We'll bring a completely new floor in Imola," he said. "We are looking forward to having it on the car. It is a significant step, it's a big step, so we hope that can deliver on expectations."
The team introduced a new front wing for Miami designed to make better use of 'outwash', and was pleased that it had performed in line with what had been expected by wind tunnel testing.
"There's always a question mark on the quality of correlation, but so far the updates we brought have been working on expectations," Dezoteux explained. "The front wing worked well and in line with the wind tunnel prediction.
"On this set of regulations it has been about containing the outwash and the wake of the car, but this has a cost in performance," he continued.
"All the teams are trying to find many small solutions to try to reproduce the outwash, which is beneficial for the flow structure and the downforce you generate from the underneath of the car.
"We've changed the geometry around the flap elements and the end plate to try to create more outwash. "It's meant to modify the flow structure that goes to the rear of the car to improve the aerodynamics of the car in different conditions.
He added that the midfield was now so closely packed that even the smallest details could make a huge difference in performance.
"You have more than ten cars within one per cent of lap time, so the opportunity is there. If the step is good enough it can gain us several places on the grid. But everybody's developing.
"I think this is what we will see all year is this race in the midfield that's going to be very interesting," he said. "The competition is at the maximum, and it's up to us to show where we are good enough to carry on."
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