[F1 Topic]Alpine High-Level Personnel Earthquake

On Friday in Belgium, just after free practice, Alpine suddenly announced that team leader Otmar Szafnauer, race director Alan Permane and technical director Pat Fry will leave after Sunday's final! This is after more than a week ago that the team's chief executive, Laurent Rossi, resigned and was transferred to a consultant without executive authority. Alpine directly replaced the actual leadership of the team.

When Renault changed its name to the group's racing brand Alpine in 2021, Rossi called out the "100 race plan": within 100 races (about four to five seasons), the team should become a frequent visitor to the podium, and even compete However, nearly half of the time has passed, and Alpine's annual results are still fluctuating between the 4th and 5th place in the team. This year, it is even behind the former client McLaren, who has been upgraded in the middle of the season and is firmly in the 4th place in the team. The points are nearly doubled. Not seeing the possibility of realizing the plan became the main reason for Rossi's resignation.

In terms of the actual performance of the team, although the two French drivers Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly are the backbone of the team, the racing performance is low. Therefore, Alpine continued to swing the machete at the directors who actually lead the team's affairs. Field cleaning. Since Szafnauer left Aston Martin at the end of 2021 due to disagreements with the Stroll family and switched to Alpine as the team leader in 2022, he not only failed to make the team better, but even worsened, so he was replaced after only 18 months in office .

However, according to Szafnauer, the Alpine team’s rights and responsibilities were chaotic, and many of his executives even skipped him and directly reported to the next level, which made him unable to perform well. The newly established racing coordination department of the original Alpine factory made the organization even more complicated. The team's administrative efficiency is not good, and it also causes him to have a bad relationship with his immediate boss, Rossi. The performance of the car is not good: the corners are not good, and the straights are not good. Even the power of the Renault engine is the best among the four active suppliers. last seat.

Regardless of whether Szafnauer was wronged or not, Alpine directly appointed racing coordinator Bruno Famin to act as the temporary team leader, and the two directors were also temporarily replaced by the youth training team director. The team did not hesitate to directly replace them before finding a good candidate. , it can be seen that there will still be confusion for a while, and the so-called 100-game plan may be even more distant. Pat Fry has been confirmed to be transferred to the technical director of the Williams team on November 1, and Szafnauer was seen in the front-now it should be the front-owner Aston Martin's team lounge after the Belgian Grand Prix.

The latest rumors point out that Alpine's future official team leader will be Mattia Binotto, the former Ferrari team leader who also resigned at the end of last year due to the team's poor record. He is a big player, and the team contract restricts him from working in any other team before the end of this year. From this point of view, Alpine's results this year are probably in vain...