After 18 years as team boss of AlphaTauri and Toro Rosso, Franz Tost will resign after the end of the 2023 Formula 1 season. During his long stint in Formula 1, the Austrian has worked alongside two of the best drivers in Formula 1 history: Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen.
It is clear that these two drivers are the best that Tost drove in Formula 1 with the team from Faenza and the 67-year-old confirms: “As you know, it’s always the same story with the champions,” said the Austrian , when he was asked on the sidelines of the 2023 test drives in Bahrain whether it was quickly clear to him how good Max Verstappen would be.
“It was similar with Sebastian Vettel,” he adds. And as a team principal who has worked with a wide variety of drivers, Tost needs to know exactly what separates the wheat from the chaff. So how do you recognize a coming world champion?
Tost explains: That’s what makes a world champion!
“What’s the difference between a champion and a normal driver? First of all, the talent, the skills,” he says. “Max Verstappen is one of the most talented drivers I’ve ever worked with. It was no different with Sebastian Vettel.”
“The second point is that they are 100 percent focused on their job. It’s their passion. They live for Formula 1. And they really do that all year round and that’s very, very important. People underestimate That. They go into detail, they want to know everything. And that’s what they live for.”
“The third point is discipline. People underestimate how important discipline is, but it’s important for every job in general. It’s not just about being on time for the meeting. No, it’s about being in the car in qualifying, for example to sit, not to brake too late when coming off the track to reach the apex.”
“And the next point is that they’re also very intuitive,” Tost continues. “What I mean by that, they study their team-mate first, then all their rivals, and they know exactly where the weak points are, where the good points are. And they also study themselves. That’s very important.”
“They’re honest with themselves, they tell themselves, even if they don’t tell anyone else, but: ‘What I did today was wrong. I can’t do it anymore’. And they don’t do it anymore! And those are the most important factors for champions.”
Tost: Verstappen the best of them all
Sebastian Vettel has won four world championships with Red Bull, Verstappen currently has two, with the chances of another title being added in 2023. So who is the better of the two drivers?
When the AlphaTauri team boss was asked whether any other driver had been in Verstappen’s league so far, he said: “From the young drivers with us, no!”
“My philosophy is simple. These drivers always find a way to bring the car to the best possible success. Let’s remember the time with Sebastian and also with Max. Back then we were at Fuji when Seb was fighting for the top five places when he crashed into Mark Webber, also with our car.”
“And it was the same with Max: he was there, he was just among the first six to eight cars, he was there. And the same with Sebastian, yes. And they get the true potential out of the car. And when they’re there then you know: ‘Okay, that’s the potential of the car’. More is not possible from the physical side.”
When did Tost know Verstappen was going to be world champion?
Tost quickly realized that Verstappen would become a future Formula 1 world champion: “It was in karting. He showed karting … Mamma Mia. But the same applies to Nyck De Vries.”
“I’ve seen kart races from Nyck and from Max, where I thought what they were doing, how they drove, how they overtook, how they had everything under control, that was fantastic.”
“And as far as Max is concerned, I remember the race at the Norisring once again. The Norisring is about 57 to 58 seconds for Formula 3 and it was wet. And he was one and a half to two seconds faster than the others. And then he can you just say, okay, max is the champion, the rest [der Fahrer] should maybe return their licenses or something.”
Tost on De Vries: “Must have him!”
De Vries, on the other hand, has not yet been able to show his full potential in Formula 1, but Tost recalls how good the Dutchman used to be in karting: “And at Nyck, I remember how I went to Gerhard back then [Berger] said who was with us at Toro Rosso: ‘Hey Nyck De Vries, we gotta have him! He’s so good.’ And then it was McLaren, they signed him.”
“And then I was a bit surprised when he was driving in Formula Renault, I think it was his first year there and I expected more. And then it came later, he then won in Formula Renault, in the Formula 3, as well as in Formula 2 and then the Formula E World Championship.”