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Szafnauer confirmed as new Alpine team principal
Otmar Szafnauer has been confirmed as the new team principal at Alpine, with Bruno Famin also joining the team.
Szafnauer was heavily linked with a move to Alpine during last season's Qatar Grand Prix, but his departure from Aston Martin was not confirmed until January of this year. In that time Marcin Budkowski left Alpine, while Alain Prost also departed prior to BWT being named title partner ahead of Szafnauer’s confirmation.
“I am thrilled to join BWT Alpine F1 Team and ready to get to work with everyone to achieve our challenge: bring the team to fight for the championship within the next 100 races,” Szafnauer said. “My attention is focused on preparing for the start of the season in Bahrain. As one of the three car manufacturers involved in Formula 1, Alpine is fully armed to achieve its ambition, I can’t wait to start the journey.”
Alongside Szafnauer’s arrival comes former FIA deputy sport secretary general Famin, who is tasked with overseeing development of the Formula 1 power unit and maximizing the crossover between the F1 team and road car brand.
Both new additions will report into Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi, while Davide Brivio also has a new role as director of racing expansion projects.
“With Otmar and Bruno joining the team, we move to a new level for 2022,” Rossi said. “Otmar will bring his unique experience in motorsports and his uncompromising desire to win, while Bruno’s proven track record in building technologies that make a difference in competition and their subsequent transference to road cars is critical for our project as a sports team and as a brand.
“Over the past year I have seen Davide’s talent to identify the best in people, and to make them perform as well as they can. I am delighted to utilize this unique skill across all existing Alpine assets and new ones we are just starting to explore. Our band of racers is complete and ready to bring the team towards its ambitious objectives in 2022.”
Chris Medland
While studying Sports Journalism at the University of Central Lancashire, Chris managed to talk his way into working at the British Grand Prix in 2008 and was retained for three years before joining ESPN F1 as Assistant Editor. After three further years at ESPN, a spell as F1 Editor at Crash Media Group was followed by the major task of launching F1i.com’s English-language website and running it as Editor. Present at every race since the start of 2014, he has continued building his freelance portfolio, working with international titles. As well as writing for RACER, his broadcast work includes television appearances on F1 TV and as a presenter and reporter on North America's live radio coverage on SiriusXM.
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