Vasseur: Red Bull-AlphaTauri links 'not right' for F1 amid controversy

Frederic Vasseur believes AlphaTauri's increased Formula 1partnership with Red Bull is "not right" but that he has fullconfidence in the FIA to police the matter. AlphaTauri is set toincrease the amount of parts it takes from the senior Red Bullsquad as it heads into 2024 under new management with CEO PeterBayer and incoming Team Principal Laurent Mekies taking over fromthe retired Franz Tost. Some rival teams are understood to beunhappy at the closeness of the collaboration with AlphaTauri alsousing the same wind-tunnel as Red Bull in the UK - although the FIAhas strict procedures in place to ensure the strict rules aroundcar development are not breached. While Vasseur does not believe itto be correct, the Ferrari Team Principal backed the FIA, which canconduct random checks of factories to ensure compliance at alltimes. "What I think we have to police is what teams are doing withtheir junior teams," Vasseur told media including RacingNews365."For me, it is not the right way because for me - Toro Rosso,AlphaTauri or Minardi I don't know what is next - what they aredoing together [with Red Bull] is a strange situation with twoteams owned by the same company. "But the FIA have been able tomanage it so far - and I am sure they will be able to in future."Vasseur also touched upon Red Bull's dominance of 2023, in which itwon 21 of 22 Grands Prix and set a new record for most points inthe Constructors' Championship with 860. He believes that with astable set of regulations, the field will begin to converge afterthe dominant campaign. "I don't have my crystal ball, but for sure,you can imagine that we will have a kind of convergence ofperformance," he explained. "With the stability of the regulations,it means that it is probably more and more difficult for Red Bullto do the same as they did this season, but you also have toconsider the positive momentum and snowball effect of when you aredominating, being able to change the project very early in theseason to next year. "I'm not sure that with the collective levelof performance of the last two or three events, they would have wonthe 21 races - it was much tighter at the end of the season. "Butlet's see what happens next year, but I don't want to be focused onRed Bull - we have enough to do with ourselves." Who will be RedBull closest challengers in 2024? Let us know in the comments andby voting in the poll below!