Ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, AlphaTauri revealed that Tost would be stepping down at the end of this season, with his Italian outfit to be run by Ferrari sporting director Mekies and new CEO Peter Bayer.
But the announcement of Mekies' recruitment did not go down well at Ferrari, as it was unaware of the development. Its team principal Fred Vasseur said the timing of the press release was "a bit aggressive".
ANALYSIS: Why Vasseur thinks Mekies exit won't harm Ferrari
Speaking in Baku on Saturday morning, Tost said that AlphaTauri's hands were forced into making the announcement when it did because the news had already started leaking out – with Italian newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport reporting it on Tuesday.
"The announcement, to tell you the truth, was not planned to come up now," he explained. "This was planned much later.
"But as you all [journalists are] very professional, there were some leaks in the press. And I didn't want to come here to Baku - it was in the Gazzetta dello Sport, for example, that Laurent will come to us - and to tell all to you, 'No, I don't know anything,' because it's not the way of how we are working.
"So, we said 'OK, we go out with the press release.' It was planned to do at a later time in the year. But now it's out. And of course, I can imagine that some people are not happy about this."
Source: Autosport