Yahoo Autos Ousted Alpine F1 Team Principal Szafnauer Rips Renault for Sticking Nose Where It Doesn't Belong
Otmar Szafnauer, an American-Romanian, said that he was hired by Renault with the understanding that he had 100 races to turn things around.
He was fired after just 33.
Alpine entered the sport's summer break in sixth place in the Formula 1 Constructors' Championship after finishing fourth a year ago.
Ousted Alpine F1 team principal Otmar Szafnauer has blasted senior management at parent company Renault for its impatience and for not living up to an agreement the former team boss thought was in place.
Szafnauer, who was fired in July after 18 months on the job at Alpine, took his shots on an upcoming edition of SiriusXM’s Cars & Culture with Jason Stein show, which airs on SiriusXM Business Radio channel 132 on August 17 at 6 p.m. ET.
Szafnauer, an American-Romanian, said that he was hired with understanding that he had 100 races to turn things around. He was fired after just 33.
"I think the senior management at Renault, the CEO, Luca de Meo, wants, as everyone does in Formula 1, wants success instantly and unfortunately, that's not how it works in Formula 1," Szafnauer said. "So, you know, I pointed out to him that it takes time and the process of doing it, what's required, and having raced for 34 years and 26 years of it in Formula 1, I think I speak with a degree of experience when I say this is what it takes to turn a team around.
"And they wanted to do it faster than is possible and I just, you know, I couldn't agree to an unrealistic timeline because if you do that, it's only a matter of time and everyone gets frustrated, so I laid out a very realistic and possible plan and I think they wanted to shortcut that plan with somebody else."
On July 28, Szafnauer, along with team sporting director Alan Permane were let go. Szafnauer was replaced, at least on an interim basis, by Bruno Famin, vice president of Alpine Motorsports.
Alpine, which fields drivers Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly, entered the sport's summer break in sixth place in the Formula 1 Constructors' Championship after finishing fourth a year ago. Szafnauer was content to take one step back this season with the belief that the moves he was orchestrating would make the team stronger going forward.
"So, there's a couple things you have to do, and I don't want to give away, you know, the things I know, but there's a few things you must do in any business is if you want to turn things around. One, you have to have a deep understanding of what you have in the first place. So, take a good look, understand what you have deeply understand what's good and understand what needs changing or what needs, sometimes it doesn't even need change, it just needs enhancing. You know, there could be skill sets that are not there at all. It's not that there's skillset that aren't good enough, they just don't exist and that's exactly what I found at Alpine.
"There are pockets of the organization that, you know, the skill level is at a very elementary level and that's because the people they have there were college graduates, for example, as opposed to somebody with 25 years of knowledge and it was in those areas that I started to recruit, but the best in Formula 1 are usually on long-term contracts. You know, at least three years and to get them to change, you know, I always say if you go to an engineer that you know or an aerodynamicist that you know at Red Bull and say, "Hey, come here and work at Alpine."
