Otmar Szafnauer under increasing pressure at Alpine F1

Heading into the Miami Grand Prix, the pressure was mounting on Alpine. CEO Laurent Rossi, speaking with French outlet Canal+ ahead of qualifying on Saturday, Rossi did not hold back in his assessment.

“It’s disappointing, it’s actually bad,” he said. “This year ended up starting with a flawed performance and flawed delivery. It’s obvious our position in the standings is not worthy of the resources we spend, and we are quite far – in fact very far – from this year’s end goal.”

Rossi was not done with his harsh assessment.

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

While it seemed that Sunday’s finish from the team — which saw both Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon finish in the points — would ease the pressure a bit. However, the opposite might be the case. In an exclusive discussion with Lawrence Barretto on F1 Unlocked that published on Monday, Rossi ramped up his criticism of the team’s start, declaring “there will be consequences” for the team’s inconsistency so far this young season.

“We started the season behind development targets,” Rossi told Barretto over the weekend. “We were lacking performance compared to where we wanted to be to cement P4. We have made a lot of mistakes, too many mistakes, over the weekend. When you compound that relatively lower performance and lack of operational excellence you end up in a difficult position.”

The man who could be forced to shoulder those consequences? Alpine Team Principal Otmar Szafnauer. Rossi took over as CEO of Alpine in January 2021, and when the team underwent a restructure for the 2022 season, Szafnauer was brought in as the new Team Principal.

His stated goal at the time? Compete for a Championship in the future.

“I am thrilled to join BWT Alpine F1 Team and ready to get to work with everyone to achieve our challenge: bring the team to fight for the Championship within the next 100 races,” Szafnauer said at the time. “My attention is focused on preparing for the start of the season in Bahrain. As one of the three car manufacturers involved in Formula 1, Alpine is fully armed to achieve its ambition, I can’t wait to start the journey!”

However, as Barretto noted, not only have Alpine perhaps taken a step back from where they expected to be this season, they have endured that while seeing Aston Martin — Szafnauer’s former team — rocket past them on the track, and in the standings.

With one of their former drivers leading the way.

Because just a season ago Fernando Alonso was driving for Alpine, alongside Esteban Ocon. But after the retirement last season of Sebastian Vettel opened up a seat at Aston Martin, Alonso made the surprise decision to leave Alpine, who was in fourth place at the time, for a spot with Aston Martin for the 2023 campaign.

“We were moving around in different things [in the Alpine negotiations] and we were not maybe agreeing on the principles,” he said before last season’s Belgian Grand Prix. “It’s not only what you agree in terms of duration of the contract, it is also the trust that you feel and how you feel wanted in a place — you know and if it was just a temporary thing or facts on a timed watch that they are happy with. It was always a strange feeling and, as I said, I felt like it was the right decision to move to Aston because they seemed to really want me and appreciate every performance I put in in the last few years.”

Alpine, seeking a new driver for 2023, immediately turned to Oscar Piastri, a test driver with the team. Alpine announced the following day that Piastri would be driving for them in 2023, but the Australian immediately released a statement denying the move. That touched off a battle for his services between Alpine and McLaren that ended up in the Contract Recognition Board, which ruled that Piastri did not have a valid contract with Alpine.

Piastri was out, and the team pivoted again, this time to Gasly.

Fast-forward to the present, where Alonso and Aston Martin are securing podiums and sitting in second place in the Constructors’, and Alpine are in P5, behind their targets. Szafnauer was brought in to deliver “progress,” as Rossi notes, and he knew the expectations going into the job.

“He is responsible for the performance of the team – that’s his job,” Rossi told Barretto this past weekend. “There is no hiding here. Otmar was brought in to steer the team, through the season and the next seasons towards the objectives that we have, which is to constantly make progress, as we did in the first two years – fifth and fourth – and to get to the podiums and therefore, this is his mission to turn this team around and bring it to the performance that we want.”

“We had a team that performed reasonably well last year, got the fourth position which is the best improvement we had in a long time. It showed a lot of promise. It’s more of less the same people so I don’t accept that we are not capable of maintaining that,” he added. “Yes, it is Otmar and the rest of his team as Otmar alone doesn’t do everything, but the buck stops with Otmar. It’s Otmar’s responsibility, yes.”

Given the surprising success of Aston Martin, would Rossi entertain the idea of recalibrating expectations?

Not in the slightest, given what he told Barretto over the weekend.

“It’s too early to do that – and I don’t want to give people the comfort,” he said. “I don’t enter a competition and reset my objective because it’s easier. The team managed to get fourth. They have the means to get fourth, more so than others. I want them to be fourth. If they don’t, it’s going to be a failure.

“If they fail by giving 500% best and turning this ship around, there will be extenuating circumstances and it bodes well for the future. If not, it’s the rule of business, there’s going to be consequences. And I won’t wait until the end of the year. The trajectory is not good. We need to fix the mindset of the team ASAP.”

For his part, Szafnauer conceded that it has not been a smooth start to the season. Speaking ahead of the Miami Grand Prix, and after Rossi’s initial comments to Canal+, the Alpine Team Principal admitted to a lack of results. “But we underperformed in Baku. The drivers ran into each other in Australia, and I think at the first race, we had a myriad of penalties, starting with Esteban being out of place,” Szafnauer said last week. “It hasn’t been a smooth start to the season and maybe that’s why [Rossi] made the comments.”

Either Alpine smooths out the trajectory, or there will be consequences.

And as Rossi noted, the buck stops with Szafnauer.