Prior to the Belgian Grand Prix, Alpine made the decision to remove team boss Szafnauer and long-time sporting manager Alan Permane from their positions. This came shortly after Renault CEO Luca de Meo replaced Laurent Rossi with Philippe Krief as the CEO of the Alpine brand.
This move was explained by incoming interim team principal Bruno Famin as Szafnauer “not being on the same timeline” as Alpine on how fast its march to the front of the F1 grid is progressing amid a disappointing 2023 season.
Alpine, although not even halfway through a five-year or 100-race strategy to contend for the world championship, made the decision to implement another set of personnel adjustments. Szafnauer, who replaced Abiteboul, held the position for only 18 months before this decision was made.
Now a team boss in the WRC with Hyundai, Abiteboul was replaced by Rossi at the start of 2021 when the Renault team was rebranded as Alpine. He believes Rossi’s 100-race plan to get to the front was flawed from the start.
“I don’t comprehend the reasoning behind quantifying 100 grands prix specifically. Why not 120 or 80?,” Abiteboul questioned in his conversation with France Info.
If you begin proposing a plan of that nature, you are bound to make mistakes since you are unaware of the actions of others involved in Formula 1.
The massive investments made by Aston Martin and the impressive momentum of Red Bull will not be halted by Laurent Rossi’s 99th grand prix.
Cyril Abiteboul, Team principal Hyundai World Rally Team
Photo by: Austral / Hyundai Motorsport
Abiteboul believes that the continuous changes in personnel at Alpine have hindered the team’s progress. This is because it takes time to attract experienced individuals from rival teams to fill the vacant positions.
In 2021, a situation unfolded and is now poised to happen again. Alongside the departures of Szafnauer and Permane, the Enstone team also experienced the loss of their chief technical officer, Pat Fry. Williams has successfully recruited Fry to fulfill a comparable position.
Abiteboul explained that after I left, the previous management emphasized the importance of starting fresh by letting go of approximately fifteen individuals.
In F1, as well as in other fiercely competitive industries, we often fail to recognize the significance of this: acquiring talent from rival teams requires a considerable amount of time.
“I cannot reword”
The team’s series of personnel changes indicates that, in addition to impatience, there might have been a hint of arrogance or excessive confidence at the beginning of the season.
If you avoid confronting the truth, eventually you begin fabricating narratives to deceive yourself.
It is possible that the story they told themselves internally was overly positive, but Alpine is also quite close.
This season, everyone has been impacted by the changes in competitiveness, except for Red Bull.
“However, Alpine consistently falls slightly short in comparison. The cause of this can vary, at times being their own responsibility and at other times not.”
The car’s performance at the beginning of the season was not up to standard, and they have not experienced the same remarkable improvements as other teams.
Ben Vinel also contributed to the reporting.
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