Toxic atmosphere between Alpine factories: 'I don't know why'
General
- GPblog.com
Alpine finished sixth in the World Championship last season. Dissatisfied with that, the French formation also had to deal with personnel changes during the season: Team boss Otmar Szafnauer, sporting director Alan Permane and CEO Laurent Rossi all left. And then there was also a rivalry between the factories in England and France. A lot of fires were put out last year, and Bruno Famin now wants to look forward.
Alpine scored a total of 120 points in 22 races: 92 more than number seven Williams and 160 points less than number five Aston Martin. Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon were the ultimate middlemen in 2023, even though the objective was to compete for podiums.
Things were not going well at all, and that made for a bad atmosphere in Víry (engine department) and Enstone (chassis department). Both parties even pointed the finger at each other. It even got to the point where Renault CEO Luca de Meo addressed everyone in a 40-minute video conference.
The message: the team members from France and Britain should operate more together. The two divisions would sit at separate tables in the motorhome during GPs and not even sleep in the same hotels. Alpine should become one team again, according to De Meo, and the staff would be required to put their best foot forward, otherwise a letter of resignation beckoned.
Famin expresses it
Interim team boss Famin looks back on why things went wrong: "I don't know why, I'm not a psychologist. But one thing is certain: to perform in such a competitive environment, you have to use everyone's potential [...] It won't happen overnight, of course, but we are working to get both parties on the same track."
According to Famin, improving mutual relationships is only a "small part of the work" Alpine has ahead of it."We need to make sure that people work well together and that we can get the best out of everyone, regardless of their nationality or where they work," he told Motorsport-Total.com.