AlphaTauri transformation: Can it follow Red Bull to success?

After a number of disappointing seasons without progression, change is afoot at AlphaTauri.

New management has come in to replace the retired Franz Tost, whilst a rebrand will instigate new vigour into the team's identity.

So with efforts being made off-track to improve the team's fortunes, will the on-track formula yield satisfactory results?

Management changes

Tost had been at the helm since Red Bull acquired the former Minardi team ahead of the 2006 season, guiding what has been viewed as the junior - or developmental - outfit for the energy drink giant's main F1 effort.

That has been evident throughout its history, bringing through drivers as youngsters and providing experience in F1 machinery and allowing those that blossom to make the step into the Red Bull.

Other than David Coulthard, Christian Klien, Mark Webber and Sergio Perez, every other Red Bull driver has been drafted through the junior programme and Toro Rosso or AlphaTauri.

Even those who didn't make it to Red Bull found success elsewhere, like Jean-Eric Vergne and Sebastian Buemi, who have both become World Champions since leaving F1.

Yet with Tost now retired and a new management structure of CEO Peter Bayer and Team Principal Laurent Mekies, a new philosophy of mixing experience with youth seems to have been taken on.

Daniel Ricciardo has been selected for a return to a full-time seat alongside Yuki Tsunoda to create that perfect blend, with what the management hopes will take the team forward from its eighth-place in last season's Constructors' standings.

Red Bull affiliation

But that's not the biggest change to be implemented by the new hierarchy.

Whilst Tost was in charge, the secondary outfit did not fully exploit F1's technical regulations regarding the acquisition of components as a customer.

Although some parts were taken on and applied to its machinery from Red Bull, AlphaTauri had opted to make its own components instead.

The question is, why would you turn down components, albeit a season old, from one of the most successful cars on the grid? It's a question which the new management is moving to answer.

As quoted by Autosport, Bayer has explained the team is moving its aerodynamics base from Bicester to a larger facility near Red Bull's factory in Milton Keynes.

It is planned that a larger number of components will be taken from the all-conquering RB19 and added to the new car this year to try and help advance the team up the grid.

It seems like a no-lose strategy for both parties, though the worry would be that the fortune of one team impacts the other.

However, if everything marries in the correct way, there is no reason why the newly-branded 'second team' can't force its way into the top five of the Constructors' standings in the coming years.