Let the last one go out! Alpin vice-president sacks complete team management, speculation of former Ferrari boss to join

Big things are happening in the Alpine F1 team. Bruno Famin, as Vice President of Alpine Motorsport, is not taking it easy and fired the team’s entire management on Friday afternoon. Otmar Szafnauer, the sporting and also technical director, is out.

The Formula One race weekend kicked off at Spa-Francorchamps on Friday, and at the start of the weekend the French Alpine stable announced that significant personnel changes would be coming soon.

And they did come, only apparently no one expected how significant they would be. Bruno Famin, Alpine Motorsport’s Vice President, who was appointed to the newly created role earlier this month, has sacked the team’s entire management team.

Vice President Famin, in fact, as commentator Stevo Eisele writes in his post, only recently ousted director Laurent Rossi, who is moving on to special projects.

In any case, Famin hasn’t messed around and has also sacked stable boss Otmar Szafnauer, technical director Pat Fry and sporting director Alan Permane is also gone.

Szafnauer, meanwhile, joined Alpine only last year from Aston Martin. Famin himself will be the interim boss of Alpin, so immediately speculation began about the arrival of Mattia Binotto, who was still boss of Ferrari last year.

“The team would like to thank Otmar for his hard work over the past 18 months and for leading the team to fourth place in the 2022 Constructors’ Cup. The team wishes him nothing but the best for the future,” Alpine said in an official statement.

Permane retires after 34 years, Fry to Williams

All three men are due to leave the Alpine team after the Belgian Grand Prix, when Formula 1 faces a mandatory summer break. Permane, it should be noted, has spent an impressive 34 years with Alpine.

According to already confirmed reports, third man Pat Fry will head to Williams, which has been without a technical director since the end of December 2022.

Whether this change will do the French team any good is still a question. But one thing is for sure, a change was bound to come. Alpine is, after all, a factory team and the current position is really miles away from the goals the company has set for itself.

Source: F1, Motorsport, Twitter – Števo Eisele