Weeks after securing a $219,000,000 investment from a Ryan Reynolds-led consortium, Alpine sacked their Chief Executive Officer Laurent Rossi. Furthermore, the bosses at Renault also fired Otmar Szafnauer, and Alan Parmane after poor performances by the team. And now, the F1 team’s former team principal Cyril Abiteboul reveals the reasons why, even after having such a huge amount of investment, Alpine decided to go this way.
The Enstone-based team stuck in the midfield, with the likes of Ferrari and Mercedes beyond their reach. Even though they started with huge expectations on their shoulders, they currently sit at P6 in the standings with 57 points to their name.
Despite this, their valuation has drastically increased after the recent investment by Reynolds’ consortium. In spite of having so much money at their disposal, former boss Abiteboul opened up on why the team is going through such widespread changes.
The former boss revealed the reasons behind Alpine’s struggle
Abiteboul recently spoke about his former team Alpine’s debacle in an interview with franceinfo sports. There, as reported by Motorsport-Total, he said, “It reflects the dissatisfaction with the results and very likely the loss of patience of the Renault leadership team,”
Following this, he added, “Apart from the impatience, there was perhaps a certain arrogance or overconfidence at the start of the season.” The French engineer then wrapped up with how the French team fell prey to their own fascinating stories, which were far from reality in the end.
After Alpine sacked Szafnauer, he was replaced by Bruno Famin to act as the interim team principal of the team until the campaign ends. Following his dismissal, the Romanian-American will now be looking to get back to work as soon as possible. He would look forward to having an impact a team and help them grow, something he wanted to do at Alpine. Unfortunately, his time got cut short.
How is Alpine performing in the 2023 F1 season?
Alpine is currently sitting in P6, below McLaren, who were once their direct rivals this season. Alpine wanted to repeat last year’s feat by defeating McLaren this time around too. However, it will be extremely difficult for them to catch a resurgent McLaren, who have much bigger ambitions after their recent success.
The teams ahead of Alpine seem to be getting better by the day, whereas no real sign of improvement is visible in Enstone. Hence, P6 looks like the most likely finishing position for them at the moment. Furthermore, they were in P4 last season, and going by that, this season has surely been a step in the backward direction.
However, with the huge amount of investment coming in, Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon will be hoping to keep the French team’s season alive, and finish on as strong a note as possible.
