AlphaTauri has denied that it was being 'aggressive' in announcing that Laurent Mekies would leave Ferrari and take over as Team Principal from Franz Tost. Ferrari Team Principal Frederic Vasseur was critical of the team putting out a press release that Mekies would depart the team , as first revealed by RacingNews365.com , claiming that they have yet to work out the terms for his departure. Tost says that the reason for the announcement was due to the leaks that started to emerge in the press about his replacement. "The announcement to tell you the truth was not planned to come up now, this was planned much later," he told media, including RacingNews365.com . "But as you're all very professional, there was some leaks in the press and I didn't want to come here to Baku and to tell you all that I don't know anything, because it's not the way of how we are working. "Then we said 'Okay, we go out with the press release' - It was planned to a later time in the year and now it's out. Of course I can imagine that some people are not happy about this."
Tost made decision to step down
Tost confirmed that it was his decision to step down from the team, despite rumours that he was told to step aside following the team's poor performance since the start of the 'new era' rules in 2022. "It was it was my decision and started already two years ago. I discussed also with Dietrich Mateschitz in those days, because I'm 67 years old," he said. "When I was younger I always said to myself 'If you're in a leading position, then you should not glue [yourself] to the seat, you should give this position to younger, more clever, creative, and motivated people'." "Now [as] I'm going into my 70s, it's time to say goodbye." The question of who to replace Tost included "other names" according to the Austrian, before deciding on Mekies along with ex-FIA executive Peter Bayer as AlphaTauri CEO. "There were some other names as well, but I don't want to go here into detail," confirmed Tost. "There's confidential talks and I'm more than happy with these two names, because I know both of them very long." Tost joked that he told Mekies, who used to be at the team under their Toro Rosso guise, that he should go to another team for experience and come back. He added: "Laurent started with us and I remember I was joking with him, I think seven years ago when he was us, I said 'Laurent you must go now to another team just to be educated to learn something new, and then you'll come back' But then I was joking and now he's coming back!"
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