Sergio Perez is surprised by the exit of his former team boss Otmar Szafnauer at Alpine and feels he was not given enough time
Sergio Perez has been quite surprised by Otmar Szafnauer’s exit from Alpine’s Formula 1 team. Szafnauer had been sacked by the French on the Friday of the Formula One race in Belgium, but was still in charge at Spa-Francorchamps for the rest of the weekend
For Perez, who drove under Szafnauer for many years at Force India, the news of his exit from the French outfit came as a shock. “Yes, I was quite surprised, especially how short notice it was,” said the Red Bull driver when asked about the replacement of his former team boss.
“I think Otmar is great,” he adds, “and I also think that every person in this position should get time. But Otmar hasn’t been given the time to really show his potential, which I know is huge, because I’ve seen what he’s done in other teams with very limited budgets and also with not so limited budgets.”
Szafnauer had spent more than ten years at Force India before joining Alpine – first as operations director under team owner Vijay Mallya, and later as team headmaster after the team went bankrupt and was renamed Racing Point.
In the process, he led the team to podiums and good World Championship finishes, such as the two fourth-place finishes in 2016 and 2017, despite extremely limited resources.
At the beginning of 2022, it was announced that Szafnauer would be leaving the racing team. He signed on as team boss at Alpine, where he was supposed to put the proclaimed 100-race plan into practice. However, he was only given around 1.5 years to do so before he was sacked at the Spa weekend and replaced by Bruno Famin on an interim basis.
“I think it’s a shame they let him go,” said Perez, who drove under Szafnauer for a total of seven years between 2014 and 2020. “And whoever comes now has to be given enough time because all these things in Formula One take an enormous amount of time.”
Alpine is currently undergoing major upheaval. In addition to Szafnauer, long-time sports director Alan Permane has also had to leave, and chassis director Pat Fry has also left for Williams. A few weeks earlier, Alpine’s managing director Laurent Rossi had to leave his post and was transferred to another project.
