The 2022 chassis regulations allow for very different design philosophies to be used, and teams across the grid have chosen their own paths to follow. The AT03 is relatively conventional and conservative in both its design and layout. The side impact structure supports the leading edge of a rectangular heat exchanger intake on either side of the driver cell. The cooler housing lays very flat, with the upper surface sweeping downwards towards the car’s rear. The underside of the cooler housing is heavily sculpted away for aerodynamic benefit. However, with so much scope for different design concepts, AlphaTauri has built some flexibility into its concept to give it scope for change if the team discovers a better one later down the line. ‘We have reasonable fluidity in our design,’ confirms AlphaTauri?s technical director, Jody Egginton. ‘It’s been this approach for several years now in this team but, with a new regulation set, we are all starting from the same new point. We focussed very much on making sure what’s under the skin gives lots of scope for us to develop the aerodynamics of the car without having to make expensive and non-performing architectural changes.
?We’d hate to be cornered by an architectural bit of hardware under the skin that we probably could have dealt with, so we believe we’ve built in as much scope as we can to make quite reasonable changes in something like sidepod geometry, or engine cover,...