Alpine began the 2024 season on a very poor note. The team that placed fourth in 2022 behind three elite teams fell to the very back during the Bahrain GP. Undoubtedly, Alpine’s new concept A524 has fallen short of the team’s expectations. Hence, it seems that these disappointing results have continued the mass exodus of key Alpine figures. Moreover, this could also cause Ryan Reynolds’ $220 million investment to collapse.
Following the Sakhir race, Alpine saw two significant resignations. Matt Harman, one of their technical directors, and Dirk de Beer, their head of aerodynamics. This announcement, however, follows the departure of other key members like CEO Laurent Rossi, Sporting Director Alan Permane, Chief Technical Officer Pat Fry, and Team Principal Otmar Szafnauer.
As a result of this huge exodus, the squad is currently in a delicate condition that might even jeopardize Ryan Reynolds’ $220 million investment. In light of this, F1 presenter Christian Hewgill has shared his viewpoint on the Fast and the Curious podcast. He claimed that some ‘fundamental’ problem is the reason for all that has transpired so far.
He elaborated, “It’s a mess. It’s an absolute mess. Two of their senior figures have, reportedly, and I believe this to be true, left the team over the weekend. One of those guys is technical director Matt Harman. There’s some big, big problems with management, with direction in this team they’ve got.”
While wrapping up, Hewgill said that the Enstone-based team’s poor performance is truly unfortunate for the sport, given that it’s a heritage team. Additionally, he mentioned that they might have finished last if not for Bottas’ pit stop and Sargeant’s mechanical difficulties.
What is the way forward for Alpine?
With so many of their senior officials departing the team voluntarily or being fired, Alpine is undoubtedly going through a difficult time. Nevertheless, given the current mass exodus, Alpine plans to reorganize into a trio of Technical Directors, with Joe Burnell leading the engineering department, David Wheater handling aerodynamics, and Ciaron Pilbeam serving as the technical director for performance.
Alpine has officially announced the formation of this new structure. Moreover, the team recently claimed that they had planned to get back to the front following a stretch of disappointing results. The French team has dropped from P4 in 2022 to P6 in 2023’s constructor’s championship and looks to even fall down further in 2024.
This, in Alpine’s opinion, has occurred because of missing the key targets in its development. However, now that Bruno Famin’s position as full-time team principal has been confirmed, the team is looking to start afresh.
Speaking about the same, Famin said, “We have decided to make these organizational changes as we can clearly see that we are not where we want nor need to be in terms of performance level and it is time to take another step in terms of organization and people.”
Alpine is currently ranked last following the first race of the season. It will therefore be interesting to see where the Enstone outfit ends up as the season goes on.
