F1 2021 Car Launch 2: AlphaTauri Honda

The second car to be launched for the F1 2021 season was AlphaTauri, formerly Toro Rosso. It was a somewhat strange launch, being at 8am on a Friday.

Red Bulls’ “fashion Brand” launched a striking car with an almost opposite colour scheme to last year, with a mostly blue livery with white accents. It also unveiled their driver line-up, partnering 2020 Monza Race winner with GP2 driver Yuki Tsunoda.

Yuki Tsunoda finished third in his debut, and only, GP2 season, behind Mick Schumacher and Callum Ilott. AlphaTauri are hoping for slightly better results than last season, because of their seventh place constructors finish, which was also one spot lower than in 2019, despite Gasly winning at a classic race in Monza. Tsunoda is the first Japanese driver in the sport since Kamui Kobayashi in 2014, and the first driver in the sport to be born in the 21st Century.

The AT02, unsurprisingly, is more or less the same car as last year, except from their re-worked rear. All F1 teams have been asked to reduce the rear downforce of the car, making the cars slower, for this 2021 season, so a smaller diffuser and narrower rear wing will be on all cars.

Every team, however, gets two ‘development’ tokens. McLaren spent theirs on the design and chassis of the car for its new engine, whereas AlphaTauri has spent theirs on the front wing and suspension, slimming the nose down being the more obvious change, and have used some 2020 specification Red Bull components for the steering and gearbox.

It will also feature Hondas updated powertrain, their last in the sport with Red Bull announcing they are running their own engine programme from 2022.

You can find the previous Car Launch Analysis, here; McLaren

You can find the next Car Launch Analysis, here: Alfa Romeo