Alpine boss pushes back at former outcast's 'meddling' claims about Renault

Alpine boss Oliver Oakes has pushed back at suggestions that the Renault board's persistent meddling, as claimed by former team boss Otmar Szafnauer, was a major issue. The French team has been one of the major disappointments on the grid ever since the brand decided to make a return to F1 as a constructor.

For a team that built its own engine and car and has the might of Renault behind it, the on-track results for the squad have been appalling. Since the team joined the grid, it has not been a success in any way. The best championship results in both guises (Renault and Alpine) have been P4, and there has been only one race win credited to the team.

You add all that up, and you have a situation where the brand has been unable to show sustainability or any success in the sport. Former team principal Szafnauer was quite blunt about this when he talked about how the Renault board's constant meddling and changing goalposts have cost the team a lot.

Szafnauer was himself a victim of it as he was earlier hired by Alpine to be a part of a five-year plan only to have it cut short after just one season. When talking about how he felt the Renault board didn't know how to succeed in F1, Szafnauer felt that the focus should be letting the team do the job and not meddling.

Current Alpine boss Oliver Oakes has, however, pushed back on that philosophy and told Autosport in an exclusive interview,

“What I would say is that it’s not always one size fits all. I think it’s fair to say that elements of it are true – and he’s a good mate, he’s been here before – but I think people should also remember who pays the bills and who supports the team. And from my point of view, we’re very lucky to have that support. It’s easy to always point the finger at somebody who’s ‘meddling’, but sometimes you have to ask yourself, well, why do they have to get involved?"

"Is it because we’re not handling the stuff? Is it because we really have taken our eye off the ball? You can get frustrated at first, but then you step back and you say, ‘Actually, we probably should have done that better, but we didn’t want to hear that.’ I don’t think there’s any need to hide things. I don’t think there’s any need to keep them at arm’s length."

Szafnauer's criticism of Alpine

Otmar was questioned about Renault and whether the brand knew how to win in F1 to which the former team boss had claimed that he had serious doubts over it. Pointing out how constant meddling is just not the best approach, Szafnauer felt that what the board ideally needed to do was to leave Alpine to the experts and just let them do their thing. He said,

“Not from what I saw. I think the best thing, and not just Renault but for big car companies to do – and I've seen it a lot, even with car companies that have racing as part of their DNA: they shouldn't meddle. Leave it! It's so much different from a car company, you should just leave it to the experts.”

Alpine is going through a rebuilding phase right now and it has Flavio Briatore as well back in the team. It would be interesting to see what the next phase would be for the team and how they approach things in the future.