Frederic Vasseur believes AlphaTauri's increased Formula 1 partnership with Red Bull is "not right" but that he has full confidence in the FIA to police the matter.
AlphaTauri is set to increase the amount of parts it takes from the senior Red Bull squad as it heads into 2024 under new management with CEO Peter Bayer and incoming Team Principal Laurent Mekies taking over from the retired Franz Tost.
Some rival teams are understood to be unhappy at the closeness of the collaboration with AlphaTauri also using the same wind-tunnel as Red Bull in the UK - although the FIA has strict procedures in place to ensure the strict rules around car development are not breached.
While Vasseur does not believe it to be correct, the Ferrari Team Principal backed the FIA, which can conduct random checks of factories to ensure compliance at all times.
Viewed by others:
"What I think we have to police is what teams are doing with their junior teams," Vasseur told media including RacingNews365.
"For me, it is not the right way because for me - Toro Rosso, AlphaTauri or Minardi I don't know what is next - what they are doing together [with Red Bull] is a strange situation with two teams owned by the same company.
"But the FIA have been able to manage it so far - and I am sure they will be able to in future."
Vasseur also touched upon Red Bull's dominance of 2023, in which it won 21 of 22 Grands Prix and set a new record for most points in the Constructors' Championship with 860.
He believes that with a stable set of regulations, the field will begin to converge after the dominant campaign.
"I don't have my crystal ball, but for sure, you can imagine that we will have a kind of convergence of performance," he explained.
"With the stability of the regulations, it means that it is probably more and more difficult for Red Bull to do the same as they did this season, but you also have to consider the positive momentum and snowball effect of when you are dominating, being able to change the project very early in the season to next year.
"I'm not sure that with the collective level of performance of the last two or three events, they would have won the 21 races - it was much tighter at the end of the season.
"But let's see what happens next year, but I don't want to be focused on Red Bull - we have enough to do with ourselves."
Who will be Red Bull closest challengers in 2024? Let us know in the comments and by voting in the poll below!
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and claim your chance to win F1 cale models and caps
SUBSCRIBE & WINMost read
In this article
Join the conversation!