Formula 1: Alpine to part company with team boss Otmar Szafnauer and sporting director Alan Permane

Formula 1
Otmar Szafnauer

Alpine will part ways with team principal Otmar Szafnauer and sporting director Alan Permane after the Belgian Grand Prix.

The latest in a series of management changes at the team come after a disappointing performance by the Renault-owned team this season so far.

Alpine are also losing chief technical officer Pat Fry, who will start the same role at Williams later this year.

Alpine have failed to meet the targets they set for themselves this year.

The Renault-owned team started the season aiming to finish fourth for a second consecutive year but move closer to the top three teams.

Instead, they are sixth and have been leapfrogged by Aston Martin and McLaren.

The decision to split with Szafnauer and Permane comes just over a week after former Alpine chief executive officer Laurent Rossi was moved into a new role in special projects at Renault and replaced with a new CEO in Philippe Krief.

And that happened two weeks after Bruno Famin was named vice-president of Alpine Motorsport.

Famin said at the Belgian Grand Prix on Friday that the moves had been made with “the aim of reaching faster the level of performance we are waiting for”.

He added that the team, Szafnauer and Permane “were not on the same line on the timeline” and that “we have a different view of the way of doing it”.

Szafnauer joined Alpine from Aston Martin, where he was team principal since August 2018, when the team was known as Racing Point. It became Aston Martin in 2021.

Prior to that, he was a senior executive of the team in its previous guise as Force India since 2009.

Permane has been with Alpine in its various guises for 34 years. He started working for the Benetton team in 1989, and moved during its shifting to Renault, then Lotus, back to Renault again and then Alpine from roles as an engineer before becoming sporting director in 2012.

In that position, he has been central to the way the team runs for the past decade. A statement thanked him for his “34 distinguished years at Enstone”, the team’s base.

Alpine said both Szafnauer and Permane would stay in position until the end of the Belgian Grand Prix weekend before departing.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said Permane’s three decades at the teem was “a truly remarkable achievement”.

He added: “He has been one of the mainstays of that period and been there through the championship years with Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso.

“He is a hugely competent guy – I doubt he is going to be unemployed for too long.”

Fry moves to Williams

Alpine's chief technical officer Pat Fry

Fry, an experienced design engineer who has previously held senior positions at worked at McLaren and Ferrari, had been at Renault/Alpine since 2020. He will start his new role at Williams on 1 November.

His move is the first senior appointment made by new Williams team principal James Vowles since he joined the team from Mercedes in February.

Vowles has set himself the target of returning Williams to competitiveness and the team have already moved forward this season.

Vowles said: “Pat’s knowledge and experience will further strengthen the team’s technical capabilities and pursuit of excellence as we build the next chapter of Williams.

“Pat has been a core part of winning teams throughout his career, he is one of the most respected experts in our industry and I’m excited to begin work with him when he joins in November.”

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