AlphaTauri boss Franz Tost says the team are currently "far away" from the targets set for 2022, and missing them has left him in a "bad mood". Tost has routinely set the goal of AlphaTauri/Toro Rosso finishing as high as fifth in the Constructors' Championship, with their best result coming in 2021 with sixth place and 142 points. However, 2022 has been a struggle for the team, with drivers Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsuonda unable to extract similar levels of performance from the AT03 as its predecessor. As of the Hungarian Grand Prix, AlphaTauri have just 27 points on the board and are eighth in the standings, ahead of Aston Martin and Williams. Tost believes that only fine margins are going against the team, but a lack of point finishes has still left him feeling upset.
Fine margins going against AlphaTauri
"We set out targets to achieve these goals [finishing fifth in the Constructors' standings] and currently we are far away. Therefore, I am in a bad mood," he exclusively told RacingNews365.com . "It's always difficult if you can't match the expectations, and I hope that we get everything together for the second half of the season. "We were sometimes a little bit unlucky with the Safety Car or Virtual Safety Car when we just had a pit-stop on [the] lap before. Two or three times [this was] the case. "[In] Formula 1, it always balances [out] during the season. "Therefore, I hope that [during] the second half the season sometimes we'll be a little bit more lucky with such unforeseen things like the Safety Car and Virtual Safety Cars."
Early failures had nothing to do with AlphaTauri
In the first races of the season, AlphaTauri suffered mechanical failures on both the cars of Gasly and Tsunoda, with the Japanese even unable to take the start in Saudi Arabia. Tost explained that it was especially frustrating as the parts that failed were supplied to the team, which had enjoyed a good pre-season. "We came to the first race [in Bahrain], and the battery caught fire on Pierre Gasly's car, therefore we had to stop, and also change the complete power unit and battery," he said. "This was not a good start to the season, and in the second race, we had problems on Yuki's car with the drivetrain. "None of those failures had anything to do with the team itself or with the operational side. "It was simply parts which were supplied to us."
Only one highlight for Tost's team so far
Despite the rocky start, and the first half of the season not bringing "what we expected", Tost was pleased with the efforts of Gasly and Tsunoda in scoring points. "The rest of the first four races [in Australia and at Imola] were okay, because one driver always scored some points and we were always within the first 10," he added. "But afterwards, we struggled a lot with only one highlight. This was in Baku, the fifth place of Gasly. "And therefore, I would say that the first half the season did not deliver what we expected."
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