AlphaTauri started the season with an uncompetitive package, but launched a barrage of incremental floor updates that brought the AT04 back into the midfield battle.
In conjunction, it took the Red Bull RB19's rear suspension from Singapore onwards, which enhanced the car's rear stability and help exploit its floor progress.
It allowed drivers Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo to make a late lunge in the championship, finishing just shy of Williams in eighth after having languished at the bottom for the majority of the season.
While AlphaTauri's emphatic floor development attracted attention from its rivals, its suspension choices also played a part in its progress and CEO Bayer says not having taken Red Bull's rear suspension earlier was an "error".
"The initial decision to go our own way with those critical parts simply was an error, and the people [who made the decision] back then are not with us anymore," Bayer told Autosport.
"I guess engineers always have plenty of arguments why you should do certain things, but I think everybody in the paddock understood now that with this new regulation change and the new downforce pattern, which is so reliant on the floor, the suspension is the next most important thing.
"You've got the floor and then you've got the suspension. If those two don't work together, you might as well not go out."
When asked if there was any sense in trying to be smarter than Red Bull, the dominant force in the past two seasons, Bayer grinned: "I guess that's the big learning for us for this year, yeah.
Source: Autosport