Tost Threatened To Throw Strategists' Laptops On Track After Strategic Mistake

Monday, 22 January 2024 at 15:00

Franz Tost, former AlphaTauri team principal, admitted he threatened to throw his engineers' laptops on track during the final race of the 2023 season.

The last race of the 2023 season - the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, was Franz Tost's final race in his career as a team principal of AlphaTauri.

Naturally, the 68-year-old wanted to achieve the best result possible. However, the result was not what it could have been in the end due to the wrong strategy choice. Franz Tost told F1-Insider:

"You also have to educate the engineers of the computer generation. I was angry because our Yuki Tsunoda was left out far too long at the last race in Abu Dhabi."

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The problem was that Tsunoda was going for a one-stop strategy. It most probably wasn't the most optimal strategy to begin with, but Tost didn't like how late the team had brought him to the pits.

"A blind man with a walking stick could have seen that he had to be brought in to change tires so as not to lose his place to Fernando Alonso."

What was super obvious to the team principal was not as obvious to the team's strategists, who relied on their calculations. As Tost described it, that really annoyed him.

"But the strategists just stared at their calculation programs and believed the numbers. That was too much for me. So I threatened to throw their laptops on the road next time, but as it was my last race, it won’t happen again."

The experienced team principal explained he believes common sense always has to be prioritized above computer numbers and simulations. He added:

"You just have to make the computer kids realize: Computers can be an important tool, but nothing more. Common sense must come first because after all, people wrote the programs they are using."