Otmar Szafnauer has opened up on his tumultuous tenure at the Alpine F1 team, revealing shocking details that highlight the internal struggles and mismanagement he never had “full control” over.
Szafnauer’s candid remarks shed light on the challenges that hindered the Enstone-based team’s performance and ultimately contributed to his departure from the team principal role after just 18 months.
Upon joining Alpine F1 team in March 2022, Otmar Szafnauer believed he would have comprehensive control over the team, a promise that quickly unraveled.
His first season in charge looked well, finishing fourth in the Constructors’ Championship. The team, however, was unable to maintain that upward trajectory in his second year due to regulation changes and lost ground to Aston Martin and McLaren.
Alpine F1 team later proceeded to dismiss Szafnauer in July 2023 in order to undertake yet another managerial change.
Since then, the Romanian/ American engineer has blasted the team multiple times, alleging that the Renault board lacked the fundamental “understanding” required to succeed in the sport.
The 60-year old has now revealed that various departments, including Human Resources, finance, communications, and marketing, reported directly to Renault, the parent company. The lack of authority over critical areas created significant operational challenges for the team boss.
“There’s a few things that went wrong at Alpine, one of which was I didn’t have control over the entire team,” Otmar Szafnauer told the High Performance podcast. “So for example, and I knew straight away: [human resources] didn’t report to me, reported up through France.
“The finance office didn’t report to me. The communications department didn’t report to me and the marketing group and commercial didn’t report to me.
“And that in itself I knew was going to be problematic. Before I took the job, it was ‘everyone’s reporting to me’. I get there and that’s not the case.
“And I knew at the beginning – I thought I could manage it, but I knew it’s just problematic.”
One of the huge controversies during Szafnauer’s time at Alpine was the Oscar Piastri situation. The young driver, who had been a reserve for Alpine, ultimately signed with McLaren after a contractual dispute.
Szafnauer clarified that he was not involved in the negotiations or decisions leading up to this debacle, which dated back to November 2021. Despite this, the team issued a press release featuring his image in connection with the failed contract negotiations.
“It [the contract] was never signed,” he added. “I started in March. I had no idea. They didn’t submit the CRB documents correctly and never signed a contract with them.
“In that November, there was a two-week time window where it could have been done and it wasn’t. Come the CRB where Alpine lost because of the filings were incorrectly done.
“We put out a press release, and it has my image on it. And it was nothing to do with me, I wasn’t even there!
“The communications department that didn’t report to me thought it was a good idea to deflect the incompetency of those that were helping at the time by putting my picture on the release.
“The person who actually put the picture on worked for me at Force India, so I went to her and said ‘you know better than this’. And she said ‘I’m sorry, I was told to do this.’
“But it just showed at the time that there are some people within the Alpine organisation that were untrustworthy and were out to get me.”
Szafnauer’s frustrations extended beyond contractual issues; he also pointed out that certain individuals within Alpine prioritized their job security over the team’s success.
“They weren’t working with me,” he said. “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.
“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.
“And 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 environment at Alpine became increasingly toxic as Otmar Szafnauer attempted to navigate these challenges.
He previously recounted how he was informed of his termination during the Belgian Grand Prix weekend via a Zoom call from Renault’s HR department rather than through a face-to-face conversation.
Such impersonal communication methods highlighted a lack of respect and professionalism that further alienated him from the organization.
The fallout from Szafnauer’s departure raises questions about Alpine F1 team’s future direction and leadership structure am.
The team’s performance in recent seasons has been inconsistent, and currently ranks down in ninth place this season with 12 points in 18 rounds, while it has terminated Renault’s engine programme from 2025.
