Laurent Rossi says the buck stops at Otmar Szafnauer as he lays down another marker on Alpine performance lack in F1 2023.
After his interview to French TV Canal+ where Alpine chief Rossi called the F1 team’s performance in 2023 as amateurish with lack of execution and not learning from mistakes, the Frenchman has showed further disappointment in his team.
He is not giving up on year yet but he is not afraid of taking the big calls if needed and the buck stops at Szafnauer who joined Alpine in 2022 after leaving Aston Martin. Rossi says he is the team boss and it is on him to generate performances from his pool of people.
“We started the season behind development targets,” said Rossi to F1 Unboxed in an interview. “We were lacking performance compared to where we wanted to be to cement P4. We have made a lot of mistakes, too many mistakes, over the weekend. When you compound that relatively lower performance and lack of operational excellence you end up in a difficult position.
“It makes for a difficult year ahead. The season is still young. I don’t want to give up, but a couple of things need to change. We need to continue reinforcing the team to get the performance back. One of the things that needs to change, as it’s largely the same team as last year, is mindset. It is something that needs to change for people in the team now and new people we are going to add.
“It starts with owning up to your mistakes, to not repeat the mistakes, to learn from your mistakes. It’s okay to make mistakes, it’s not okay to make them twice because it means you didn’t learn. This year, there is a lot of excuses, which lead to poor performance and a lack of operational excellence.
“I need to tackle this, I need the right people to tackle this. I need the team to be aware they need to do that as it’s not up to me – it’s up to them, they have to do it. It’s their responsibility. I hope they make the same diagnosis. I will make it clear to them that this is the diagnosis and they need to fix that,” summed up Rossi.
When pressed on to check if Szafnaeur is the key person here to bring performance, Rossi pretty much agreed. “He is responsible for the performance of the team – that’s his job,” he said. “There is no hiding here. Otmar was brought in to steer the team, through the season and the next seasons towards the objectives that we have, which is to constantly make progress, as we did in the first two years – fifth and fourth – and to get to the podiums and therefore, this is his mission to turn this team around and bring it to the performance that we want.
“We had a team that performed reasonably well last year, got the fourth position which is the best improvement we had in a long time. It showed a lot of promise. It’s more of less the same people so I don’t accept that we are not capable of maintaining that. Yes, it is Otmar and the rest of his team as Otmar alone doesn’t do everything, but the buck stops with Otmar. It’s Otmar’s responsibility, yes,” summed up Rossi.
Even though he is in his second year at Alpine, the pressure is already mounting and the question around trust has begun. Rossi isn’t shying away to note that good results increases trust but bad results decreases them.
“Trust is something that increases with good results and erodes with bad results,” continued Rossi. “Everyone starts with a capital of trust and then you manage it. There are only so many setbacks you can take in a sport, in a competition world, because basically it shows. Everyone can tell whether or not you’re going in the right direction.
“It directly impacts your capital of trust. I would say Otmar is very capable, but he has a big task on his hands. I know you can get there if you put your mind to it. People need to realise we are not where we should be.”
Ahead of this latest remarks from Rossi on the F1 site, Szafnauer hasn’t had the time to read the previous statement from the Frenchman to Canal+. Considering the busy weekend in Miami, the Alpine team principal didn’t get the time to go through what was said.
“Reading something like that on paper puts no more pressure on us,” said Szafnauer to media including Motorsport Network. “Everyone wants to do well here. We’re very well experienced, with technicians and engineers at the highest level, and we put pressure on ourselves. So, we just have to fix it.
“I saw that media wrote something because I saw the headline, but I haven’t had time to read it. But we underperformed in Baku. The drivers ran into each other in Australia, and I think at the first race, we had a myriad of penalties, starting with Esteban being out of place.
“It hasn’t been a smooth start to the season and maybe that’s why he made the comments. But I have to read them. I have no idea [why he made those comments] and you’ll have to ask him. I’ll be asking him. This weekend was so busy that I haven’t had a chance to discuss it,” summed up Szafnauer, as Alpine managed a slight comeback in Miami with double points results in eighth and ninth.
Here’s Laurent Rossi on lack of execution from Alpine
Here’s Victor Martins getting F1 test chance
Here’s how F1 Miami GP panned out
