The future of AlphaTauri is unclear after reports emerged that new Red Bull chief executive Oliver Mintzlaff was unhappy with Faenza’s performance.

After a difficult start to the season, Marko admitted in March that AlphaTauri must improve its on-track performance and commercial output.

The following month, the team announced that longtime team boss Franz Tost would be leaving at the end of the season to be replaced by Ferrari’s Laurent Mekis. Former FIA secretary general Peter Beyer will become the team’s chief executive.

After weeks of evaluation, Red Bull has now settled on how the new-look AlphaTauri team will operate.

It considered selling the team but that has now been ruled out. AlphaTauri’s current Faenza base near Imola will remain the team’s main hub, but it will also employ additional staff from its UK outpost in Bicester.

Bicester currently houses AlphaTauri’s aerodynamics department, but more staff will be deployed there to improve synergy with parent team Red Bull.

“The decision has been taken. AlphaTauri will continue to be fully owned by Red Bull and will continue to operate as a junior team,” Red Bull consultant Marko said in a statement. YouTube interview Autosport’s sister site Formel1.de.

But according to Marko, Mintzlaff asked the team to “use as many synergies with Red Bull Racing as the regulations allow”, which means moving more staff to Red Bull’s F1 headquarters in Milton Keynes. Not far from Bicester.

“The cooperation with Red Bull Racing will be closer, also in terms of cost ceilings and synergies,” Marco clarifies. “With the expertise he has gained at the FIA, (Bayer) is very important. Of course, that also flows into Red Bull Racing.”

Yuki Tsunoda, AlphaTauri AT04, Zhou Guanyu, Alfa Romeo C43, Lance Stroll, Aston Martin AMR23

Photography: Steven Tee / motorsport pictures

But Marko stressed that although “many options were considered”, its Faenza plant would not be abandoned and “the rest of the employees would remain in Italy”, including Bayer and Mekies.

Outgoing team principal Tost believes a more even split between Faenza and Bicester was the right decision as the team tries to be more competitive in F1’s job market and relocates to Italy Often a stumbling block for experienced employees and their families.

“In any case, it was always clear to me that the team would stay at Faenza. We have all the infrastructure here,” Tost explained in another yet-to-be-published YouTube interview.

“Already in England, AlphaTauri has a lot of staff. The whole aviation team is in England. What we’re definitely going to do in the future is if we want to sign engineers and they don’t go to Italy, for whatever reason, then they can be in England. That base works.

“I think it will help the team in the future because it used to be difficult to bring experienced engineers to Italy. Experienced engineers, they are around 35, 40 years old, they have families, they have children, and then they don’t want to go to Italy .”

What Red Bull has yet to decide is whether the AlphaTauri moniker that promotes Red Bull’s in-house clothing brand will remain, or whether the team will see another name.

“That hasn’t been decided yet,” Tost said. “That’s in the hands of Red Bull and they want to call the team in the future.”