AlphaTauri’s problems continued into 2023. The AT03, thoroughly revised to meet the new regulations, shared many components with Red Bull but not the potential, and the season ended in disappointment. The AT04 did not improve much on its predecessor, turning out to be an AT03-based refinement.

The AT04 was fast on the straights but lacked grip in the corners, as was the AT03, and the season-opener came without much improvement to its performance. Results were naturally poor, and team principal Franz Tost dismissed the aerodynamic engineer after the first round. In April, Red Bull, the team’s parent company, announced a reorganization of the team. Former Ferrari driver Laurent Mekies became team principal from the following year, and Peter Bayer was named team CEO. Tost was to retire at the end of the 2023 season. However, it was said that despite more advice from the Red Bull Group and the engineering staff working tirelessly to prepare update after update to enhance cornering performance, a fundamental solution could not be found, and in fact, the cause of the problem became more difficult to identify. After much trial and error, the team finally found a way to improve the performance by the end of the season, resulting in consistent points-finishes.

The AT04’s power unit, the Honda RBPTH 001, also powered the wildly successful Red Bull team. As Honda provided equal support to all four cars, AlphaTauri felt the pressure as the performance gap with Red Bull came into question.

AlphaTauri replaced Pierre Gasly with Nick de Vries, 2019 FIA Formula 2 champion and 2020-2021 Formula E champion. He also finished ninth in Round 16, Italy when he made a substitute entry for Williams in 2022. de Vries was a promising F1 newcomer, but he struggled with an unstable car and failed to gain results. The same was true for teammate Yuki Tsunoda, who finished tenth in Round 3, Australia and Round 4, Azerbaijan, but results remained sluggish until the second half of the season.

Due to his poor performance, de Vries was effectively ousted from the team after Round 11, Britain, replaced by Daniel Ricciardo, the reserve driver, from Round 12, Hungary.

One problem with the AT04 was the size of the cockpit. The AT04, which succeeded the AT03, retained the design based on Gasly’s physique, was too large for the smaller Tsunoda and much too large for de Vries. Ricciardo, in contrast, was large, and the team struggled to find a seat position that would fit his physique.

Soon after his replacing de Vries, Ricciardo broke his right wrist in a crash during free practice for Round 14 the Netherlands, and reserve driver Liam Lawson was rushed in on the Saturday. Lawson had competed in five races before Ricciardo’s return in Round 19 in the U.S., finishing ninth in Round 16, Singapore.

The effects of the car’s updates began to show, and the AlphaTauri team scored a string of points finishes toward the end of the season. In the five rounds from the U.S. GP to the final round, the team gained 20 points to move up to 8th place in the constructors’ standings.

Although Tsunoda finished 20 of the 23 races in his third year of F1 racing, he only finished within the points six times, and his best result was eighth. It was a frustrating season in which he was at the mercy of the car, but, he recorded his first fastest lap in Round 19, the U.S. Grand Prix.