Alpine has roped in David Sanchez as its F1 Executive Technical Director in a newly created role after his mini stint with McLaren.
After his mini stint with McLaren that ended few weeks ago, Sanchez has already joined Alpine in a newly created role of Executive Technical Director at Enstone. It is a quick move since the British outfit did not put any gardening leave clause.
It is a return for Sanchez at Alpine after being the Junior Aerodynamicist in 2005. He since moved to Ferrari where he spent a decade before ending his tenure to join McLaren this year. But the role did not match his expectations and they parted mutually.
At Alpine, he will be responsible for the Performance, Engineering and Aerodynamic areas of the team, where Ciaron Pilbeam (Performance), Joe Burnell (Engineering) and David Wheater (Aerodynamics) will report to him of their work.
In turn, Sanchez will report to Alpine team principal Bruno Famin. “I am delighted to welcome David back to Enstone, where he started his career back in 2005,” said Famin. “This is a key appointment to ensure we are optimising everything we do as a team and focusing on the right performance areas.
“It is clear that the performance of the car and development path has not moved at a sufficient pace relative to our ambitions as a team. We look forward to welcoming David and working hard together to achieve the ultimate success.”
At the same time, Sanchez added: “I’m excited by this challenge at Alpine. I’m looking forward to working at Enstone again, the place where I started my Formula 1 career. This team has always had so many fantastic people involved and there is clearly so much potential to unlock.
“We have a big task ahead to improve on-track performance and it is this type of challenge that motivates me. I’m very much ready to begin and look forward to working with the Enstone-Viry technical teams again with the sole aim of bringing regular success back to this great team.”
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