The dramatic news that Gunther Steiner will no longer be walking the hallowed tiles of the F1 paddock is still ringing in most peoples ears. Gene Haas after an initial flurry of media activity when he launched his buy and build F1 team has grabbed the limelight once again.

The sacking of Steiner though is less of a surprise than it showed have been. Haas F1 are no the rubbing rags of the F1 field and there is little hope of them doing much better.

 

 

 

Alpine like Haas no improved future horizon

For 2024 the American owned team’s best hope is they can beat the underinvested Sauber because AlphaTauri are set to be reborn anew and Williams aer making steady progress year on year.

Yet at times sacking the manager is more about optics than reality, something Alpine may know a thing or two about. Having recruited Romanian-American Szafnaeur to oversee the remainder of the grand “100 races” Alpine project, less than 18 months into his tenure there is a crisis at the top of the French owned company.

Laurent Rossi who created the dream that Alpine F1 would in 100 races be competing for race wins and champions was clearly removed by the Renault board but not before he created chaos in Enstone.

Ahead of the Miami Grand Prix, the Renault VP Rossi tore into the Alpine F1 team describing their efforts as “flawed” and certain individuals having the “state of mind that is not up to this team’s past standards.”

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Extraordinary Miami outburst

Rossi added: “I did not like the first grand prix, because there was a lot of – I’m sorry for saying this – amateurishness, which led to a result that wasn’t right. It was mediocre, bad.

“And the last race in Baku was tremendously similar to the one in Bahrain. That is not acceptable.”

He also stated the buck stopped with Otmar and claimed ultimately it was he who was responsible for the performance of the team.

As TJ13 commented at the time this extraordinary outburst indicated Rossi himself was under extreme pressure from the Renault Hierarchy and in fact within couple of weeks he was relieved from his duties.

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Szafnaeur brings RP from last to 4th

Otmar’s response in the face of public humiliation was to double down and state his case:

“I’ve been there just over a year now and I spent the first six, seven, eight months assessing deeply as to the team, the structure, how it operates, how it functions, the good, the bad, the indifferent, and I have a good understanding,” he said.

“I’ve been doing this for 25 years at a very senior level and I know what it takes to move a team from, say, last to fourth or mid-grid to second.”

Szafnaeur had been a senior figure at Force India during the crazy days of Vijay Mallya and despite the owner’s hugely negative influence on the team progressed them to a championship high of P4.

“So, I have an understanding and the plans are in place,” concluded Otmar.

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Otmar plans waiting in the wings

Yet Rossi’s outburst with hindsight clearly sullied Szafnaeur’s reputation with the Renault top brass who via their replacement for Rossi vicariously executed the termination of Otmar and Alain Permaine’s contracts just before the summer break.

With no plan B, Alpine VP Bruno Famin stepped in to manage the team yet lacking the experience of Szafnaeur he doesn’t really stand a chance.

Szafnaeur had been recruiting new personnel but the lead times in Formula One in terms of garden leave are usually at least one year and so the impact of these appointments had yet to take effect.

Whilst the team improved their performances over the latter part of the season this was more to do with other teams switching the in season development towards the 2024 car.

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Interim TP self justifying rant

Yet the French squad remained in P6, two places below their previous years position but scored less than half the points of even Aston Martin with McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull out of sight.

Famin remains in charge and will lead the team into the new season with as yet no signs of a permanent replacement for Szafnaeur. With the sackings in the past, it would be expected the interim team principal would be looking to the future, but inexplicably Famin decided to justify the dismissals in his post season review.

“With the changes we made mid-season we untapped some potential in people,” the Frenchman said.

“People are much freer to propose things, to improve things, especially true on the trackside where immediately I saw a change in the mindset. For example, we promoted Rob Cherry [to race team manager] and Dylan Milligan [to chief mechanic] and they are doing a very good job in proposing improvement, and in making sure their guys also propose things.

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“I think all of this potential was a bit capped until the end of July, and I’m very happy with that. It’s true for the garage, true also for the track engineering, true for the strategy. We are daring to do things we were not daring to do before,” Famin states in somewhat of a self justifying manner.

“We are delivering more hardware, using more potential of the car, extracting more performance from the car, and I’m very happy with that mindset,” Famin continues. 

“We have a lot of talent, and we need to help them to bring new ideas in developing the car but also in the way we work. The idea is to develop the potential of the full team, to develop the potential of the car, and to get a better car and better results.”

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Aline “front to back ” new 2024 car

Technical director Matt Merman has promised Alpine will begin the 2024 campaign with a “front to back new F1 car.” Yet given the eye watering investment Aston Martin have made and the McLaren new top team in the technical department together with their updated wind tunnel, Alpine look lightweight by comparison.

Szafnaeur revealed when he joined the team they were not even spending within tens of millions of the budget cap. Something he sought to improve.

Yet Renault’s chequered history as a works team owner is merely repeating itself. With the exception of the glory years delivered by Alonso in 2005/6 it appears the French F1 team is mired more in political wrangling than performance and there’s no apparent reason this is set to change any time soon.

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