AlphaTauri F1 boss convinced incoming Ferrari personnel will do a “much better job” than him

AlphaTauri F1 team boss Franz Tost believes that his replacement and the current Ferrari race director Laurent Mekies will do a better job than him.

The Austrian announced that he will be departing the team after serving as one of the longest running team principals in the sport, managing the junior team of Red Bull. Mekies will take over the team and share some of the responsibilities with Peter Bayer.

In an exclusive interview with PlanetF1, Tost said:

“The reality is that at the end of the season, I will stop because I’m then nearly 68 years old. It’s time to hand it over. I’m really happy that we found, with Peter Bayer and Laurent Mekies, two very experienced Formula 1 people. I’m convinced that they will do a very good job, a much better job than me.

“Then we’ll see, the last 18 years, they were quite interesting for me, I came to Faenza on the eighth of November 2005 and then, together with fantastic people which were working over there, we built up the team. I must say that, in Faenza in those days at Toro Rosso, were very enthusiastic.

"We had a wonderful time and the number of people increased. We started with, I think, 85 people. Then, after two years, we had 125 people already, and everything worked well."

Ferrari boss shares his thoughts on Laurent Mekies' departure from the team

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur, meanwhile, has stated that there was no set date as to when Mekies will leave the team to assume his duties as team principal of AlphaTauri.

Speaking to Motorsport.com, Vasseur said:

"This will depend on the condition of the change. For sure as I said before, we have a long-term contract with him and we'll have to find the best for Ferrari, and depending on when he will leave the company, and when he will move to Toro Rosso, we will decide the end of the collaboration. But I'm not scared about this, because we will do it properly, and the relationship is very positive.

“I can perfectly put myself in Laurent’s position. And I think it's quite impossible to refuse when you are in this business to become a team principal. Now I'm there to protect the interests of Ferrari. And it's Ferrari first and it will be always Ferrari first, and it means that we'll have to discuss about the conditions of this."

It will be interesting to see how the change works out for all the parties involved next season.