Alpine signs former Ferrari man as executive technical director

Former Ferrari Chief Engineer for Vehicle Concept David Sanchez has joined the Alpine F1 team as their Executive Technical Director for the 2024 season.

Sanchez had earlier worked with the manufacturer in their old guise, Renault, as a junior aerodynamicist in 2005. Since then, the Frenchman has been involved in many other teams on the grid, including McLaren and Ferrari.

He left the Italian team in March 2023 and served a gardening period thus returning to McLaren in 2024 as their technical director of car concept and performance. But he shockingly left the Woking-based outfit after just a couple of months as the project was "not aligned with the reality of the position."

On Alpine's official website, David Sanchez claimed that he was excited about the challenge of returning to the French team, saying:

“I’m excited by this challenge at Alpine. I’m looking forward to working at Enstone again, the place where I started my Formula 1 career. This team has always had so many fantastic people involved and there is clearly so much potential to unlock.

"We have a big task ahead to improve on-track performance and it is this type of challenge that motivates me. I’m very much ready to begin and look forward to working with the Enstone-Viry technical teams again with the sole aim of bringing regular success back to this great team."

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Alpine team boss welcomes the former Ferrari man to the fold

Alpine team principal Bruno Famin stated that he was 'delighted' to welcome back Sanchez into the French team recognizing his previous contribution to them.

As quoted by the aforementioned source, Famin said of the former Ferrari man:

“I am delighted to welcome David back to Enstone, where he started his career back in 2005. This is a key appointment to ensure we are optimizing everything we do as a team and focusing on the right performance areas.

"It is clear that the performance of the car and development path has not moved at a sufficient pace relative to our ambitions as a team. We look forward to welcoming David and working hard together to achieve the ultimate success.”

Sanchez was one of the key players behind Ferrari's excellent start to the new regulations in the early part of the 2022 season. However, he would face a much stiffer challenge at Alpine as the team is currently languishing at the back of the grid this year.