Formula 1: “Verstappen needed a lap, while most needed 150km to get used to it”
Franz Tost was sat in his stationary automobile, engine running, on a cloudy day in late 2008 in Italy, paying close attention to the instructions that were being sent over the phone.
Just before this interview, he was on the phone being reminded by a pal that he can finally hit the slopes, which bent his ear once again.
Still, he was a team leader with his ear twisted. Dietrich Mateschitz, the owner of Red Bull, was on the other end of the phone, and he had some inquiries. Many of them.
“Dietrich was an exceptional person you will find only once in your life,” says Tost, now 67, from his office in Faenza, Italy, from where he is set to retire as Alpha Tauri team principal at the end of 2023.
“He was warm and friendly, but he was always demanding because otherwise he would not achieve all these successes – if something didn’t go in the right direction he wanted to know everything, he wanted to know details and he called many times if he wanted to know something.”
That day, the call continued for a while. Tost’s stint at Red Bull’s “other team” is filled with accomplishments, the most notable of which being the development of some of the greatest champions in the sport, such as the recently crowned three-time F1 champion Max Verstappen and four-time title winner Sebastian Vettel.
From Verstappen to Vettel: Tost’s never-ending supply of talent
The support and arduous labor started in 2006 when Mateschitz purchased the adored backmarker Minardi team, bringing Toro Rosso, as the team was then called, into the Red Bull stable. In less than two years, they had triumphed in a race including Vettel, who was 21 years old at the time and had fewer resources than others.
It was never the plan for Alpha Tauri, as the squad was renamed in 2020; another rebranding is scheduled for 2024, to be successful in races.
The two it did, for Vettel in 2008 and Pierre Gasly in 2020, both oddly at Monza, were a fitting reward for a squad formed to develop young drivers from Red Bull’s large talent pool, with the best moving on to the senior Red Bull team.
“I said, ‘Let’s talk about this in five years and see who was right, you or me.’ Don’t talk so much. It happened right away, in the first year, not over a five-year period.
“And Vettel was the same way; they both adopted comparable strategies and mindsets. It was a pleasure collaborating with these drivers. All three of these drivers—Daniel Ricciardo, Carlos Sainz, and Pierre Gasly—are elite athletes with a ton of promise.”
A amiable, family-oriented squad
The attitude and atmosphere of the squad at the garage and back in Faenza is a big part of what makes Alpha Tauri such a fertile ground for upcoming talent.
In the northern Italian region, close to Bologna, there is a little factory with storks perched atop each lamppost along the estate’s street. Giancarlo Minardi, the original team’s founder, still resides there.
Just before this interview, he was on the phone being reminded by a pal that he can finally hit the slopes, which bent his ear once again.
“I said, ‘I have a lot of work to do and I’m here in my office. Observe [all that is] on the table. I am pressed for time.
“But later on, I might say, ‘Well, it’s a beautiful day, there’s powder snow, let’s go skiing. I am eagerly anticipating that day.”
