Alpine announced Pat Fray to be their Chief Technical Officer while Matt Harman has been named as the Technical Director, as Aston Martin and Aramco sign new deal.
Following the departure of Marcin Budkowski along with advisor Alain Prost, Alpine has been forced to re-structure their F1 technical group with Fry becoming the CTO where he will look after all the technical activities at Enstone.
He will be responsible for setting a performance target and also defining the technical capabilities along with the competencies needed. He is also tasked to identify any future technologies that can be used and the disruptors.
Fry will set the long term development strategy to maximise performance within the cost cap, while arbitrating on performance trade-offs and risks. Harman, meanwhile, will be responsible for delivering performance and experiments to the track.
He will structure the technical organisation and processes and oversee the chassis technical direction. Having come from a power unit engineer background – working with Mercedes for 18 years before joining Alpine in 2018 – he will be an important link with the people at Viry.
“We are considerably strengthening Alpine F1 Team by having Pat and Matt at the helm of Engineering in Enstone,” said Laurent Rossi. “Pat is one of the most experienced engineers in Formula 1, while Matt’s drive and expertise will prove critical in extracting the full potential of our race cars, thanks in particular to his unique expertise combining chassis and engine development.”
In another news, Aston Martin announced a long term partnership with Aramco where the deal is based on the Saudi Arabia giants working on ‘development of highly efficient internal combustion engines, high-performance sustainable fuels, advanced lubricants and the deployment of non-metallic materials in vehicles’.
The contract gives Aramco team sponsorship rights, licensing agreement along with exclusive branding and endorsement rights for its fuels and lubricants. Additionally, the development of such products will lead to commercialisation of fuel-efficient engine technologies for road vehicles, which Aston Martin and Aramco can benefit from.
This deal moves the Silverstone-based F1 outfit away from Mercedes’ partner Petronas. Even though they will have the same power unit, the team will use fuel and lubricants prepared by Aramco solely for the them, with the team name changing to ‘Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team’.
“We are in the sport to win so I am delighted to welcome an incredible partner of the stature of Aramco, who I have learnt from this process has a tremendous amount of intellectual property and technical capability, which I know will greatly assist our team to achieve our goals of winning Formula One world championships,” said Lawrence Stroll.
“Our historic partnership demonstrates the scale of our ambition to make our team a pioneering and winning force in Formula One and showcase the sustainability and performance of Aramco’s products.”
At the same time Martin Whitmarsh added: “Winning in Formula One is all about assembling and managing the right ingredients in the optimal way. Aramco is an innovative company whose ultra high-tech expertise will make a very real and hugely valuable contribution to improving the performance of, and delivering the future success of, Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team.”
And Mohammed Al Qahtani, Senior Vice President Downstream at Aramco, added: “The partnership reflects Aramco’s efforts to reduce emissions in the global automotive and transport industries. Our ambition is to supply premium fuels and lubricants to the global automotive sector, and our tie-up with the Aston Martin team will help drive awareness of our high-quality products. It is an alliance that harnesses our shared commitment to engineering excellence and innovation, and has the potential to deliver winning results both on and off the track.”
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