Red Bull briefly suspended the development of the 2022 car

Alexander Alpen said Red Bull briefly stopped paying attention to their 2022 car as they scrambled for last season's world title.

Alpen, a test and reserve driver for Red Bull for the 2021 season, spent a lot of time on the simulator helping the team develop the car for the new season, admitting that at that time the team turned its attention to the race between the drivers and the team's championship. The now Williams driver says his job pays off for the team and says his duties were fairly evenly distributed until then.

"Most of the time, I spend 50 per cent of my time on the car for the 2021 season and 50 per cent on the car next year, but as we get closer to the end of the season, we don't focus on next year's car and more on this year's car," he said. Especially in the last two games between Jeddah and Abu Dhabi, we tried a little harder than usual and yes, it worked well. ”

Team principal Christian Horner said over the summer that teams can't simply "give up" their development as they are in an uphill battle with Mercedes while their championship rivals appear to have taken an overall faster course at the end of the season.

While that could hamper the team's early pace in 2022, Alpen believes their decision was the right one.

"In some ways, you just have to think about a short-term championship, and if you have a car at the beginning of the season that can win the championship, you have to put all your eggs in one basket," he said. ”

Alpen also stressed: "They're smart in that regard, Red Bull has been good at adapting to the rules with Adrian (CTO) and aerodynamics experts in the past, and they've been smart in that regard, so I don't think they're going to be at a disadvantage next year." ”