Pat Fry, the former Chief Technical Officer of Alpine, has spoken out in an interview with Motorsport.com regarding his ex-employers for the first time since parting ways with them. Currently working at Williams, Fry believes that the main reason why Alpine failed to progress past a point is because Renault, their parent company, neither had the motivation to push further nor gave team boss Otmar Szafnauer a fair chance to do so.
Fry said, “I’m not so sure that Otmar got a fair chance at fixing the place. Because to some degree I think metaphorically, your hands are tied, I guess.”
Williams #F1 chief technical officer Pat Fry says he left Alpine because there was a lack of “enthusiasm” and “drive” to move the team forward beyond fourth place
Does the team need to finish in the top 3 in 2024? #AbuDhabiGP pic.twitter.com/nDbkHtUBiD
— Autosport (@autosport) November 25, 2023
The British Engineer then made it very clear that by company, he was referring to the parent company and not the members of the Alpine F1 team. “The destiny that we were in charge of, we could control. And I think we did a good job,” he said.
Fry is extremely proud of the work done by the F1 team and how they improved the car year after year. He explained that if the cars from 2020 to 2022 are put side to side, the improvement will be clearly visible. He claimed to be extremely proud of what the team has achieved.
However, Fry claimed that he wanted to make a bigger difference and could not sit around and do nothing. Thus, after a three-year stint with the French team, he finally decided to part ways in the middle of 2023. After serving his gardening period, he joined Williams as their Chief Technical Officer on the 1st of November.
Pat Fry explains why he joined Williams after leaving Alpine
Fry revealed that joining Williams wasn’t really an instantaneous decision. Team principal James Vowles had to try and convince him for a long time. “It wasn’t until another couple of months after that that I decided to come here,” said Fry.
Pat Fry joins Williams as the new Chief Technical Officer pic.twitter.com/6oThjeSxr3
— Junaid #JB17 (@JunaidSamodien_) July 28, 2023
Contrary to his old workplace, Fry claimed that Vowles is working really hard to improve things. Additionally, the board too is backing him. This is what excites Fry the most because having the backing of the board means that the things that they can achieve are limitless.
Another aspect of working in Williams is that Fry is helping rebuild a historic British team and that is quite exciting for him as well. Things are looking good for Williams as of now and they are looking to make big strides in the 2024 season.
