Former Alpine boss, Otmar Szafnauer, recently shared eyebrow-raising details about the issues he faced during his time with the French team. He shared that certain team departments did not report directly to him and he was asked to bring a devolving change to the team's culture.
Looking back at his stint, he shared on the "High Performance" podcast, that a few team departments like finance, HR, and commercial, did not report to him during one season. They in fact directly contacted Renault's headquarters in France. He said that when he started his job as a team principal, all team departments were supposed to report directly to him. Szafnauer said,
"A few things that went wrong at Alpine. One of which was, I didn't have control of the entire team. I knew straight away...HR didn't report to me, reported up through France; the finance office didn't report to me, reported up through France; the communications department didn't report to me; and the marketing group didn't report to me...and that in itself I knew was going to be problematic [5:20].
"Before I took the job, it was, 'everybody's reporting to me,' I get there and that's not the case."
He also said he was asked by Alpine management to change the culture of the organization. However, this needed to be changed in a way that risked the jobs of many good hard-working members. Szafnauer said he was not on board with the idea and refused to carry it out.
"There were suggestions that I needed to change the corporate culture in a way that I didn't think was the right way to do it. You know, I know how to change corporate culture into a culture that has a winning mentality, psychological safety, everything that I talked about, which is I was on my way of doing [13:58].
"They wanted a corporate culture change in a different manner, you know, to get rid of some people that were doing a good job that have been there for a long time. My thought was, 'well, if you get rid of people that do a good job then the message you send is, "Do a good job, get fired."' That's not the culture that you really want, [...] so I said no."
In July 2023, Alpine announced that their team principal, Szafnauer, and sporting director, Alan Permane, would leave the team after the 2023 F1 Belgian GP. This marked a major change in the French team's management system and was discussed widely among the sport's observers, particularly because it took place in the middle of the season.
Alpine's steady decline continued even after Otmar Szafnauer left the team
Even after Otmar Szafnauer was replaced by Bruno Famin in 2023, the team continued to struggle in F1. Though Pierre Gasly managed to bag a pole position at the Dutch GP in 2023, the team only managed to pick up a few points through the season. It ended 2023 with 120 points and was placed sixth in the constructors' standings.
In 2024, Alpine showcased their new car and explained how they created a completely new fundamental concept for the car which the team would continue to develop in the future. The team's start to the season was quite slow, it did not score a single point until the Miami GP, where Esteban Ocon finished 10th. Though Alpine improved over the European leg of the season, its aim to become one of the top teams in F1 ebbed farther away.
As of now, Alpine stands in ninth place in the 2024 constructors' championship table with 13 points.