Alain Prost has left his as role as Alpine’s advisor ahead of the 2022 season and criticized the way the team handled the news.
Prost has been acting as Renault’s special advisor since their return to F1 in 2016. Since 2019, he has been the Non-Executive chairman of the French team. He helped in the team’s growth over the years, and was even a part of the outfit when they rebranded into ‘Alpine’ ahead of the 2021 season.
Earlier this week it was announced that Prost would be leaving his position with immediate effect. However, before this news was broken by Alpine or Prost himself, it got announced by F1’s official page.
“It is understood the Frenchman had an annual contract with Alpine and the management decided not to renew it for 2022.” the official statement read.
The former McLaren driver is furious with the message and called it completely untrue. According to him, he himself decided not to continue, something that was agreed upon at the end of the 2021 season.
He accuses the team for not being respectful, and says that he’s disappointed with how things unfolded.
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Alain Prost decided to leave Alpine because of ‘personal relationships’
The 66-year old took to his Instagram page to clear air on matters surrounding his departure from Alpine.
“I am very disappointed how this new has been announced today,” he said. “It was agreed that we would announce together with Alpine F1 Team! No respect sorry!
“I have refused the offer made to me in Abu Dhabi for the 2022 season. Because of a personal relationship and I was right! To the Enstone and Viry team I will miss you.”
The Alpine management is going through massive overhaul ahead of the 2022 F1 season. Two-weeks ago it was announced that acting team principal and Executive Director Marcin Budkowski would leave the Enstone based team.
Former Aston Martin team principal Otmar Szafnauer, whose departure from the Silverstone outfit was also recently made official, has been tipped to join Alpine as their team boss.
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