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Franz Tost has admitted AlphaTauri’s reliability issues this season have come as “a big shock” to the team.

AlphaTauri have yet to finish a race higher than eighth this season, Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda having filled that placing in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain respectively.

It represents a disappointing start to the campaign for the Faenza-based squad, whose struggles mirror those of the senior team that is also under Red Bull ownership.

Gasly was the first driver to retire from a grand prix under the new era of regulations when he pulled out in Bahrain with the car on fire, while Tsunoda endured a torrid weekend at Jeddah where he was unable to set a lap in qualifying and his AT03 then broke down on the way to the grid for the race.

So many troubles have been unexpected given everything had looked so promising on the reliability side in testing.

“It was a big shock for us,” said Tost, the AlphaTauri team principal, quoted by Motorsport-magazin.com. “During the tests in Barcelona and Bahrain we had no problems.

“We drove thousands of kilometres without any problems and since the start of the season we suddenly have really big problems with the reliability of the car.”

Tsunoda is already on to his third and final permitted