AlphaTauri to unveil major upgrades in Red Bull style at Singapore GP

Red Bull's RB19 car has been the class of the field in 2023, securing a dominant lead once again this season on the back of a dominant design philosophy centered around maximizing ground effects.

While rival teams pursued varying concepts at the start of the new regulations era, a trend of convergence on the Milton Keynes squad's successful formula has emerged.

This pattern is set to continue, with Red Bull's sister team AlphaTauri introducing major upgrades at this weekend's Singapore Grand Prix to align their AT04 much closer with the championship-winning RB19.

AlphaTauri entered 2023 with their own initial design, but a lack of performance has seen them languish at the bottom of the constructors' standings with only 3 points scored so far.

This compares to the 13 wins and 592 points of big brother Red Bull. But significant changes are afoot, as incoming AlphaTauri team principal Laurent Mekies and CEO Peter Bayer look to revitalize the squad.

Peter Bayer revealed the Italian outfit will introduce upgrades in Singapore based heavily on the proven Red Bull concept:

"We actually have a big upgrade coming for Singapore, which will follow the same philosophy so everybody's closing in on that."

He confirmed the AT04's upgrades will closely mirror the RB19's design.

While Formula 1's rules prohibit extensive sharing of resources and IP between teams, even within the same family, AlphaTauri's struggles while Red Bull essential thrives highlights the limitations of complete separation.

Bayer acknowledged AlphaTauri must become more self-sufficient, but hasn't fully utilized areas of permitted collaboration like suspension components.

Greater synergies with Red Bull are now planned to extract more potential.

With AlphaTauri set to undergo a rebranding for 2024, Bayer described the need to still "exploit the technical collaboration" with their parent team: "we can still exploit the technical collaboration because we haven’t done that in the past."

The upgrades introduced in Singapore will be an essential step in evaluating the gains from increased alignment with Red Bull's successful concept.

With the RB19 already the class of the field in 2022, Red Bull's dominance may only strengthen further if their sister team can realize more performance from adopting the same design philosophy.

For rivals seeking to close the gap, countering the Milton Keynes juggernaut could become an even steeper proposition.