Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi said that the appointment of Otmar Szafnauer as Alpine F1 Team team manager marks a return to a more traditional management structure and is key to making the French team competitive in 2022 and beyond.
The Renault-owned manufacturer announced the signing of the Romanian-American as new team principal on Thursday, having had former Suzuki motor racing boss Davide Brivio and Marcin Budkowski sharing the role last year.
"I want to say that the old structure was not working," Rossi told Reuters and two other journalists in a select media round-table. We went through the season, we never made a fool of ourselves, it was just fine.
"Now was it the right structure to move forward and take the team to the next level because the team has been plateauing and rather was in almost a negative slope," he added, referencing the triple-pronged leadership matrix management style that was put in place last year at Alpine.
Alpine, who competed as Renault until the end of 2020, returned to the top step of the podium with a win for Frenchman Esteban Ocon in Hungary but finished fifth in the standings last season for the third year in a row.
Their target is to fight for the championship within 100 races of the start of Formula One's new rules era, which begins with the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix on March 20.
Rossi: When Otmar started to come free obviously it piqued my interest
Ex-Aston Martin team boss Szafnauer's appointment, which was announced alongside that of former Peugeot Sport head and FIA deputy secretary-general of sport Bruno Famin as head of Alpine's power unit operations, follows a review of the team's old structure Rossi began in November last year.
Budkowski left Alpine in January following the review and Brivio has been moved on to a broader talent development role, the team confirmed putting to bed rumours he would be heading back to MotoGP.
Rossi said Szafnauer, a long-time F1 insider, who previously worked with Honda before moving to Force India which became Aston Martin last year, would be able to unify the team's operations across their Enstone headquarters, power unit base in Viry-Chatillon and at the race track.
He said the 57-year-old had been on the shortlist of F1 team principal candidates and moved swiftly to hire him once he left Aston Martin in January.
"I took my time, I didn't want to disrupt the team," said Rossi, who replaced Renault F1 team boss Cyril Abiteboul in January last year. "When Otmar started to come free obviously it piqued my interest I accelerated the conversation and I doubled down."
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