Alpine is having an absolutely horrible season, and things will need to improve massively if this team is to survive. But this is not something that came out of nowhere. Alpine has a history of complete chaos that has led to this current problem. In a three-part series, I will analyze the problems at Alpine and look at how they can fix it. Because if things don't change, there is a decent chance Renault might just pull the plug on the whole operation.
Let’s take a bit of a walk down memory lane. Back in 2020, things looked fairly promising for Alpine, which back then was still known as Renault. They had raked up three podiums, which was remarkable considering the podiums that year almost always consisted of Hamilton, Verstappen and Bottas. Renault was highly competitive that year, battling with McLaren and Racing Point for third. Renault would ultimately finish fifth, closely behind Racing Point but ahead of Ferrari. All in all, not a bad season.
But it was downhill from here on out.
In 2021, the team rebranded to Alpine. Daniel Ricciardo had jumped ship for McLaren, so two time world champion Fernando Alonso was drafted back in. But a lot more changes were made behind the scenes in the rebrand. CEO and team principal Cyril Abiteboul was fired and replaced by Davide Brivio and Marcin Budkowski, who essentially shared the role of team principal. Laurent Rossi meanwhile was appointed as the CEO of Alpine. The tasks held by one man were now shared between three.
On-track, Alpine dropped off massively. Ocon managed to win the chaotic Hungarian Grand Prix, and Alonso got a podium in Qatar, but that is where the headlines end for the team. Alpine finished the season yet again in fifth, but a staggering 120 points behind rival McLaren and only 13 points ahead of the surprisingly strong AlphaTauri.
The 100 Races Plan
At his appointment, Laurent Rossi sketched a “100 Races Plan”, which meant that Alpine was supposed to be a frontrunner team within 100 races. That may sound like a lot of time, but it essentially comes down to four seasons of F1. If you want to achieve that goal within that time, you need to start making fundamental changes from the very start, and by all accounts, Rossi didn’t do that. The results in 2021 were not very encouraging in that regard. The plan was widely blasted by F1 legend Alain Prost, who at the time worked as a special advisor to Alpine. As a sign of respect for the man and his insight, Alpine fired him in 2022. He wasn’t the only one to go: Budkowski was also fired from the team and Brivio was taken out of the team to focus on the driver academy. It’s unclear what exactly Rossi was doing to further his plans, but a large part of it seemed to come down to firing everyone he didn’t like if the results weren’t immediately great. There obviously was no room for self-reflection there, neither from Rossi nor from the board of parent company Renault.
Former Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi.
Alpine takes a step back in 2022
For 2022, the team drafted in Otmar Szafnauer as team principal. Szafnauer had done reasonably well at Force India and Racing Point as its team principal, so he seemed like a decent enough choice. The results on-track were again not great. Alpine didn’t score a single podium all year and ended the season with roughly the same amount of points as a year earlier. This time, that was good enough for P4, but that was more due to McLaren taking a step back rather than Alpine improving. This season also showcased another problem Alpine was having: reliability. The team had eight retirements during the season, all of which were caused by mechanical issues. Three of those were caused by issues with the engine, which was especially embarrassing because Renault makes those engines themselves and exclusively for Alpine. The engine department that year had a new boss, a relatively unknown Frenchman called Bruno Famin.
But the big news out of Alpine in 2022, was of course related to their drivers. Alonso signed a contract with Aston Martin in the middle of the season, being very vocal about his annoyance with the way Alpine was run. His logical replacement would be reserve driver and highly promising talent Oscar Piastri. But immediately after Alpine announced him, Piastri posted his now iconic tweet in which he essentially told Alpine to F off. Rossi and Szafnauer took every opportunity they got to complain about Piastri and Alonso, putting the blame on anyone but themselves. The lawyer handling the contracts was also quietly fired a little later on. But it was clear from both of the drivers leaving that something was very, very rotten within Alpine.
Internal chaos and managerial mayhem in 2023
That was only further cemented in 2023. Alpine was stuck in no man’s land, being a distant sixth behind former rivals McLaren and Aston Martin, but way ahead of the backmarkers like Williams and AlphaTauri. Rossi again complained the whole season long, saying that the team should do better if they wanted to achieve that 100 Races Plan, and putting the blame solely on Szafnauer. Apparently the board of Renault was finally done with all this nonsense, because they kicked Rossi out halfway through the season. Clearly, they very much liked the feeling this gave them, because less than a month later they also fired Szafnauer and sporting director Alan Permane, who had been with the team for 34 years. Seeing the writing on the wall, chief technical officer Pat Fry also left that same day to join Williams. To replace Szafnauer, they appointed Bruno Famin, who for the occasion was also made vice president of Alpine.
After leaving the team, Szafnauer made very clear what he felt were the problems at Alpine. He explained that he was never given enough time, that he and the team always had to perform immediately because of that 100 Races Plan. Famously, he said: “This board believes that getting 9 women pregnant will have them have a baby in just one month. Some things just take time, but that’s not what they wanted to hear.” This sentiment was later echoed by Abiteboul, Budkowski and Prost, who all blasted Rossi and the board of Renault as well.
Famin meanwhile casually strolled in and talked about how he feels the team can do much better and that it was Szafnauer holding everything back. Recently on Drive to Survive, he even said that the team clearly had everything it needed to compete for podiums again. And while Ocon and Gasly both did get a podium in 2023, it was a far cry from the strong form the team had shown in 2020 and 2021.
The 2024 Alpine car has proven to be unreliable and slow.
2024: The Chaos Continues
In his original announcement for the 100 Races Plan, Rossi explained that he was sure that by 2024 the team would be regularly competing for podiums. Famin may not have continued that specific name, but it’s clear that he has a very similar view on the matter: the team should be able to be great, and it’s everyone’s fault but mine. That immediately became clear at the start of 2024, when Gasly and Ocon qualified 19th and 20th. Shortly after the opening race of the season, chief technical officer Matt Harman and chief aerodynamicist Dirk de Beer left the team. In a response, Famin said that it was clearly necessary to shake things up because the technical team wasn’t performing well.
With two races now done, Alpine is still without a single point in 2024. Gasly couldn’t even start in the second race because of an engine failure. It is clear that things have to change, but it’s equally clear that Alpine and Renault have no clue how to change it. It’s not on the drivers, they are doing an admirable job. But it’s becoming harder and harder for Renault to justify why they are in the sport. If things don’t improve, they might even leave it all together. But that’s something I will go over in the second part of this series.