Otmar Szafnauer has been a staple of the Silverstone-based F1 team across three major ownership shifts - Force India, Racing Point, and now Aston Martin which was an evolution of Lawrence Stroll acquiring the Force India team. Now, he has left the team after it had an abysmal 2021 where it finished only ahead of Alfa Romeo, Williams, and Haas in P7. That was a major drop in form from P4 in 2020.
There were murmurs that all was not well and Lawrence Stroll had a more heavy-handed approach towards managing the team. He even brought in 4-time world champion Sebastian Vettel from Ferrari to become the lead driver to partner with his son Lance Stroll.
Szafnauer also had a new boss in former McLaren team principal, Martin Whitmarsh, joining as the CEO of Aston Martin technologies. Many expected this could be a preamble towards Whitmarsh becoming more involved with the team and that's something Aston Martin has also hinted at.
The former McLaren F1 boss could again be in charge of a F1 team
"Fortunately, we are led and managed by a strong group of individuals, and we are comfortable to take a little time to explore options before announcing a new team structure," said the team in a statement adding that currently the role could be managed within the leadership team.
There are many new folks joining Aston Martin like Dan Fallows from Red Bull who joins as a technical director under Andy Green who was elevated to chief technology officer. Red Bull has taken Fallows to court in a bid to force him to honour his contract with the Milton Keynes-based team.
For Szafnauer, he could be looking at a role at Alpine which has been without a de facto team boss since the exit of Cyril Abiteboul. Laurent Rossi, the new CEO of the brand had been seen meeting with Szafnauer and the team is exploring a restructuring.
