Alpine F1 Crisis: Revolution, pain, troubles and blurry future
F1 NewsSaturday, 29 July 2023 at 15:46
Alpine are going through a period of "pain and trouble" evidenced by senior-level departures from the Renault-owned Formula 1 team, a move that has taken the sport by surprise.
Speaking to reporters at the Belgian Grand Prix, James Vowles new F1 boss at Williams, also former champions are emerging from a tough period in their history, announced the hiring of Alpine's chief technical officer Pat Fry to take on the same role.
"I'm not inside, but they're clearly in a lot of pain and trouble and (going) through a conversion phase," said Vowles, speaking as an observer.
"The bit I can really say is that Pat's not a part of that change that they're going through. Pat's decision was made many, many months ago."
Vowles said his first approach was made in January after starting in the job at Williams and he finally convinced Fry, who has had senior roles at McLaren and Ferrari, in April to make the move. He will start at Grove in November.
"He understandably had a journey with Alpine that he wanted to continue but actually by April he could see the vision as to why I had joined Williams and was very much in line and on board with that," said Vowles.
He identified Fry as someone who knew how to empower and train up the next generation of engineers, and had the experience to put a structure in place for the long term.
Szafnauer, Fry and Permane were all heavy-hitters shown the door at Alpine
On the same day Fry was announced by Williams, Alpine issued a statement saying that team boss Otmar Szafnauer and sporting director Alan Permane were leaving.
That follows a July 20 reorganisation with Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi moved to 'special projects' and Philippe Krief taking over at the top, with Bruno Famin handed responsibility for motorsport activities.
Szafnauer said only last weekend that he was confident Renault head Luca de Meo would give him time, with the team working to a 100 race plan.
Rossi had replaced Cyril Abiteboul as principal in January 2021, meaning Alpine have now had four team bosses in just over two and a half years in a sport where stability is a highly-prized quality.
Williams have also had four principals since 2020, when the founding family sold the team. They are currently seventh in the championship, with Alpine sixth.
Champions Red Bull, who have won 21 of the last 22 races and whose streak now extends to 12 in a row, have the sport's longest-serving boss in Christian Horner who has held the position since 2005.
From the media side, no one saw the Sazfnauer and Permane departures coming
Perhaps. they did neither, the latter a stalwart of the organisation for three decades is a huge change at the highest level of the team.
The timing of the announcement, on Friday, as opposed to a more sensible announcement after the Belgian Grand Prix weekend would've made sense. However they may have been forced to play their hand, if indeed reporters in France were getting a whiff of the revolution about to happen.
The dust has not settled on this episode, as "Phase 2" will be interesting to watch as the once great Renault team has not had an easy birth with their Alpine rebrand project despite having a handy car at their disposal since the ne regs kicked in last year.
But they have not improved. Operationally they have been dire at times. Ironically, on the weekend that this has all come to fruit, Alpine rookie defector Oscar Piastri is working wonders at McLaren.
Qualifying second to Red Bull's dominant Max Verstappen by a hundredth of a second for today's Sprint Race in very tricky condtions at Spa-Francorchamps.
Alpine's loss under Szafnauer's watch is very much McLaren's gain. Perhaps with experienced Mark Webber in his corer, the Australians saw this coming, hence making the move that shocked the paddock at the time. What the future holds will make for some interesting headlines in months to come.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin; Additional Reporting by GP247)
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