Analysis: Honda has a striking presence on the AlphaTauri AT02

The first thing that strikes you is of course the colour. Although the proportion of blue and white across the entire car will not be much more or less than last year, the AlphaTauri will give a completely different look, especially on TV. At the front, the AT01 of 2020 was predominantly white, now dark blue will predominate. In the photos below we always first see the car for 2020 and below that the car for 2021.

Significantly fewer changes than McLaren

If you look through the colour change, the front of the car is otherwise almost identical. Apart from the larger air intakes for the brakes and some extra flaps on the bargeboards, only the protruding wings for the sidepods have been changed. On the AT01 it was attached to the chassis at two points, on the AT02 the top element has been removed.

In fact, the 2021 and 2022 cars are so similar that you might think this is just the AT01 with a different livery. In their content pool, Red Bull also explicitly mentions a "livery reveal", so who knows what changes we will see before the start of the season.

However, there is also a logical explanation for the few changes. The FIA ​​has limited a large part of the development freedom for 2021 by means of tokens. The adjustments to, among other things, the nose that we saw at McLaren, was a necessary evil due to their switch to Mercedes engines (which have other aerodynamic proportions). So they were forced to use their tokens for this.

The other teams have the freedom to use their tokens more strategically. So there is a good chance that all other cars that will be presented at the front have also changed little. That AlphaTauri does present the basis for the 2021 chassis here, can be seen if we look more at the rear of the car.

Good look on the new diffuser

As required by the regulations for 2021, part of the floor in front of the rear wheels has been removed. All flaps and slots that were there, have not returned in another place. That is something we will see on all cars and that also applies to the much smaller diffuser.

At the presentation of McLaren, we already saw that the rear of the car is a lot less dense, but we did not get a good look at the diffuser itself. In the photos of the AT02, the difference with last year is even more visible. The diffuser is still there, but the "tunnels" protrude less. The distance to the asphalt is, therefore, greater and therefore less downward pressure is generated.

More attention for Honda

As with McLaren, the wing endplates at the rear protrude slightly further than last year. The design is somewhat simpler at AlphaTauri, but that may also be due to the specification with which they present the car. These are really the details. Finally, what is written on the rear wing is more noticeable.

Where AlphaTauri was written last year, it now says 'Honda' in large letters. In the last year of their collaboration, it is the first time that Red Bull has given their engine supplier so much space on one of their cars. That probably has everything to do with the Japanese driver who will be behind the wheel here next season.

This article was written and originally published by Pelle on the Dutch edition of GPblog.com.