For Franz Tost, the Abu Dhabi GP was the last race as team boss of the AlphaTauri F1 team. Dr. Helmut Marko worked with Tost for many years and thanked him for the many achievements that Tost has achieved in all those years with Alphatauri and predecessor Toro Rosso.
Since 2006, Franz Tost has been team boss of AlphaTauri, Red Bull’s sister team that was initially known as Scuderia Toro Rosso. During that period, the team managed to achieve two victories. In 2008 Sebastian Vettel won the Italian GP and twelve years later Pierre Gasly also managed to win the same Italian GP.
Two sensational victories, but according to Helmut Marko, Franz Tost also helped Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen become multiple world champions.
“The two world champions we have with Red Bull went to school with him,” Marko told ‘Sky Sports Germany’. Franz was the one who said it takes three years for a driver to mature in Formula 1.”
“However, I told him that Vettel and Verstappen would not need three years, that one year of training would be enough for them.”
“But thanks to Franz’s great training, they were almost instant championship material when they switched to Red Bull.”
Franz Tost will still act as a consultant in the future, but for his ‘official farewell’ the son of the late Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz has a nice farewell gift for Tost.
“Mark Mateschitz has already symbolically given him a model car as a gift. He will get a complete car in the future,” said Helmut Marko. “He will be on standby as a consultant in 2024 and 2025. That means if we need him, we can contact him.”
“Apart from that, apart from Formula 1, he is free to do whatever he wants. As a Tyrolean he deserves to compete again after 18 years in F1.”