The news of Otmar Szafnauer joining Alpine is perhaps F1's worst kept secret. Murmurs of the Romanian-American joining the French outfit started last year and were more or less confirmed when the news of his exit from Aston Martin was announced in January. But then came the news of the former Aston Martin and Racing Point sponsor BWT joining hands with Alpine as title sponsor. Now just days ahead of Alpine unveiling its new 2022 car, Szafnauer has been announced as the team principal.
Szafnauer's move was already more or less confirmed when the exit of Marcin Budkowski was announced by Alpine. As a part of a technical reshuffle Pat Fry was made the chief technical officer of the team while Matt Harman was elevated to technical director.
Szafnauer has a lot of experience and was instrumental in helping the Force India team pull through when it was going through financial uncertainly and enabled the transition to Racing Point and then Aston Martin. But his relationship with Aston Martin owner Lawrence Stroll was always an edgy one, and once Martin Whitmarsh was hired as Aston Martin Technologies CEO, his time was always coming to an end.
Alpine despite its power deficit managed P5 in the constructor's championship last year
Under Szafnauer, the Silverstone based team in its various avatars has always punched above its weight, and his expertise will be a great help for the Alpine team which wants to be a world championship winning team in the next 100 races.
Alongside Szafnauer, Alpine has also hired Bruno Famin as the new executive director of the Viry department which is in-charge of the new power unit. Famin was FIA's director of operations.
"With Otmar and Bruno joining the team, we move to a new level for 2022. Otmar will bring his unique experience in motorsports and his uncompromising desire to win, while Bruno's proven track record in building technologies that make a difference in competition and their subsequent transference to road cars is critical for our project as a sports team and as a brand," said Laurent Rossi, the CEO of Alpine.
The Alpine team has gone through a lot of changes in the last two years. In early 2021, Cyril Abiteboul, its long time team boss was fired by Renault group CEO Luca De Meo. Under Laurent Rossi a new structure was implemented, but that also has seemingly failed with tensions rising between Marcin Budkowski and Davide Brivio, the sporting director who thought he was being hired as the team boss. Through the year, the team didn't have a team principal and with Szafnauer's arrival that is changing which can only be good news for the team.
