Photo: Alpine Media
Otmar Szafnauer believes Alpine management, more interested in their careers, was the main cause of his exit from Alpine and the loss of Oscar Piastri to McLaren.
Szafnauer who had helped the Force India/Racing Point team punch above their weight from 2009 to 2021, achieving one victory with Sergio Perez at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix left the Silverstone-based team in 2022 but the Romanian American's stint would be a turbulent one.
One of the most high-profile disasters of Szafnauer's reign was in the summer of 2022 when Oscar Piastri shunned Alpine to drive for McLaren in 2023.
The Australian, who had won the Formula 3 championship in 2020 and the Formula 2 championship in 2021, could not instantly graduate to F1 because no seats were available at Alpine and was rumoured to be loaned out to Williams in 2022.
Piastri spent most 2022 as an Alpine reserve driver but had looked set to graduate to F1 after contract extension talks between Alpine and Fernando Alonso broke down.
The double world champion then shocked the F1 world by announcing his departure from Alpine at the end of 2022. He moved to Aston Martin in 2023, replacing the retiring Sebastian Vettel.
Alonso's departure had seemingly paved the way for Piastri's promotion, but amazingly the Australian turned down the drive and publicly snubbed Alpine on social media before eventually landing a seat with McLaren instead, replacing compatriot Daniel Ricciardo.
The two parties would later squabble for Piastri's services in the Contract Recognition Board [CRB], with McLaren later winning the case. The loss was a major embarrassment for Alpine and cost the team over £530,000 in legal fees.
"From the beginning, I had nothing to do with not signing Oscar Piastri correctly," Szafnauer explained on The High-Performance Podcast. "That mistake was made in November; I started in March.
"In November, the Piastri contract was meant to be signed; it was never signed. I started in March, I had no idea they didn't submit the CRB documents correctly and never signed the contract with them.
"There was a contract after he finished his F2 career where Alpine had an option on Oscar Piastri being an F1 driver for Alpine, and that contract was never executed in November. There was a two-week time window where it could have been done and it wasn't.
"My point is come the CRB [ruling], where Alpine lost because the filings were incorrectly done we put out a press release. The press release had my image on it, so number one nothing to do with me. I wasn't even there, but number two, the communications department that didn't report to me, thought it was a good idea to deflect the incompetency of those at Alpine at the time by putting my picture on the release.
"The lady who actually put the picture on, Lucy Genon worked for me at Force India, so I went to Lucy, and I said, 'Lucy, you know better than this,' she said, 'I am sorry I was told to do this.'
"It just showed, at the time, that there were some people within the Alpine organisation that were untrustworthy and that were out to get me. So they weren't working with me.
"When you don't care about the performance of the team, what you care about is your power base more than you care about the performance of the team; that's when you do those types of things. And when you don't care about the performance of the team, what you care about is your power base more than the performance of the team, that's when you do those types of things.
"I remember a saying at Ford, and hopefully it's not like this anymore but we used to have a saying that,'Ford Motor Company didn't make cars, it made careers,' which means you care more about your career. That's not the case in Formula 1, but it can be the case if you get a bunch of people from, say, the Renault Group now being put in charge of a Formula 1 team.
"You don't care about on-track performance. You care about your career, and if that's the case, you make those types of decisions."
The team was then saved by a consortium led by Lawrence Stroll in 2018, who rebranded Force India to Racing Point before becoming Aston Martin for 2021, signing Vettel to lead them into a new era.
Despite Vettel's second place at the 2021 Azerbaijan GP, Szafnauer left the Silverstone-based team to join Alpine for 2022. However, the American was the public scapegoat for not only Alpine losing Piastri but also it's decline in results. Alpine who had finished fourth in the constructors championship in 2022 fell to sixth in 2023 as rivals McLaren and Aston Martin caught up.
After a sluggish run of results in the first half of 2023, the Renault Group reshuffled its management team, with Alpine's CEO Laurent Rossi being replaced by Philippe Krief in July. Szafnauer and long-time team stalwart sporting director Alan Permane were sacked midway through the Belgian GP weekend.
Szafnauer, now the chairman of the EventR travel app, has recently been vindicated by Alpine's abysmal 2024 season. The team has since dropped to ninth place in the constructors' standings and will become a customer team for 2026 after the Renault Group announced they would end all F1 operations after the 2025 season.
"There a few things that went wrong at Alpine, one of which was I didn't have control over the entire team," said Szafnauer. "For example, I knew straight away HR didn't report to me, they reported up through France, the finance office didn't report to me, they reported up through France, the communications department didn't report to me, and the marketing group didn't report to me.
"That in itself, I knew was going to be problematic. Before I took the job [I was told] everyone is reporting to me. I get there, and that's not the case! I thought I could manage it, but I soon knew that it [would be] problematic."
One of the most high-profile disasters of Szafnauer's reign was in the summer of 2022 when Oscar Piastri shunned Alpine to drive for McLaren in 2023.
The Australian, who had won the Formula 3 championship in 2020 and the Formula 2 championship in 2021, could not instantly graduate to F1 because no seats were available at Alpine and was rumoured to be loaned out to Williams in 2022.
Piastri spent most 2022 as an Alpine reserve driver but had looked set to graduate to F1 after contract extension talks between Alpine and Fernando Alonso broke down.
The double world champion then shocked the F1 world by announcing his departure from Alpine at the end of 2022. He moved to Aston Martin in 2023, replacing the retiring Sebastian Vettel.
Alonso's departure had seemingly paved the way for Piastri's promotion, but amazingly the Australian turned down the drive and publicly snubbed Alpine on social media before eventually landing a seat with McLaren instead, replacing compatriot Daniel Ricciardo.
The two parties would later squabble for Piastri's services in the Contract Recognition Board [CRB], with McLaren later winning the case. The loss was a major embarrassment for Alpine and cost the team over £530,000 in legal fees.
"From the beginning, I had nothing to do with not signing Oscar Piastri correctly," Szafnauer explained on The High-Performance Podcast. "That mistake was made in November; I started in March.
"In November, the Piastri contract was meant to be signed; it was never signed. I started in March, I had no idea they didn't submit the CRB documents correctly and never signed the contract with them.
"There was a contract after he finished his F2 career where Alpine had an option on Oscar Piastri being an F1 driver for Alpine, and that contract was never executed in November. There was a two-week time window where it could have been done and it wasn't.
"My point is come the CRB [ruling], where Alpine lost because the filings were incorrectly done we put out a press release. The press release had my image on it, so number one nothing to do with me. I wasn't even there, but number two, the communications department that didn't report to me, thought it was a good idea to deflect the incompetency of those at Alpine at the time by putting my picture on the release.
"The lady who actually put the picture on, Lucy Genon worked for me at Force India, so I went to Lucy, and I said, 'Lucy, you know better than this,' she said, 'I am sorry I was told to do this.'
"It just showed, at the time, that there were some people within the Alpine organisation that were untrustworthy and that were out to get me. So they weren't working with me.
"When you don't care about the performance of the team, what you care about is your power base more than you care about the performance of the team; that's when you do those types of things. And when you don't care about the performance of the team, what you care about is your power base more than the performance of the team, that's when you do those types of things.
"I remember a saying at Ford, and hopefully it's not like this anymore but we used to have a saying that,'Ford Motor Company didn't make cars, it made careers,' which means you care more about your career. That's not the case in Formula 1, but it can be the case if you get a bunch of people from, say, the Renault Group now being put in charge of a Formula 1 team.
"You don't care about on-track performance. You care about your career, and if that's the case, you make those types of decisions."
Szafnauer decieved as various departments failed to report to him
During his time at Force India, Szafnauer showed tremendous generosity by paying the team's employees' salaries twice when Force India faced bankruptcy.The team was then saved by a consortium led by Lawrence Stroll in 2018, who rebranded Force India to Racing Point before becoming Aston Martin for 2021, signing Vettel to lead them into a new era.
Despite Vettel's second place at the 2021 Azerbaijan GP, Szafnauer left the Silverstone-based team to join Alpine for 2022. However, the American was the public scapegoat for not only Alpine losing Piastri but also it's decline in results. Alpine who had finished fourth in the constructors championship in 2022 fell to sixth in 2023 as rivals McLaren and Aston Martin caught up.
After a sluggish run of results in the first half of 2023, the Renault Group reshuffled its management team, with Alpine's CEO Laurent Rossi being replaced by Philippe Krief in July. Szafnauer and long-time team stalwart sporting director Alan Permane were sacked midway through the Belgian GP weekend.
Szafnauer, now the chairman of the EventR travel app, has recently been vindicated by Alpine's abysmal 2024 season. The team has since dropped to ninth place in the constructors' standings and will become a customer team for 2026 after the Renault Group announced they would end all F1 operations after the 2025 season.
"There a few things that went wrong at Alpine, one of which was I didn't have control over the entire team," said Szafnauer. "For example, I knew straight away HR didn't report to me, they reported up through France, the finance office didn't report to me, they reported up through France, the communications department didn't report to me, and the marketing group didn't report to me.
"That in itself, I knew was going to be problematic. Before I took the job [I was told] everyone is reporting to me. I get there, and that's not the case! I thought I could manage it, but I soon knew that it [would be] problematic."
Google News