F1 icon Alain Prost launches scathing attack on Alpine after Otmar Szafnauer axe

29 July 2023 , 05:00

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Otmar Szafnauer is out the Alpine exit door after this weekend's Belgian GP (Image: Hasan Bratic/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)

Formula 1 legend Alain Prost blasted "incapable" former Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi as part of an extraordinary attack on his former team.

The Renault-owned team is in crisis after a mass exodus of key personnel. The latest departures are team principal Otmar Szafnauer, sporting director Alan Permane and chief technical officer Pat Fry, all of whom leave after this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix.

Those departures come just a week after CEO Rossi was replaced. And, in the last 18 months, the Enstone-based team has also lost double world champion driver Fernando Alonso, superstar rookie Oscar Piastri and former executive director Marcin Budkowski.

Prost is another to have recently exited the Alpine bubble. While the four-time F1 world champion never raced for the Enstone team, he has a long-standing affiliation with Renault and was a non-executive director of the team until he left in acrimonious circumstances in January 2022.

In the wake of the news of yet more leadership changes, Prost launched another attack on the team in his column for French newspaper L'Equipe. "I love this team and seeing it in this state today saddens me. She deserves better and has all the assets to get there," the 68-year-old wrote.

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"I just believe that you have to rely on history to understand the error. If you look at the great successes of the last 30 years, you will find a simple structure, detached from an industrial organization chart, built around three or four strong personalities coupled with a champion driver."

Safe to say, Prost does not believe Alpine have had that formula for a long time. Instead, as he went on to detail, his opinion of the most recent team CEO Rossi probably could not be much lower.

He added: "During my years at Renault, how many times have I heard in the corridors of the headquarters in Boulogne-Billancourt that F1 was a simple sport that could be run from home by men in place? Big mistake – as proven by the last of the leaders, Laurent Rossi, from whom [Renault CEO] Luca de Meo separated a week ago.

Alain Prost was scathing in his assessment of Alpine's current situation (PA)

"Laurent Rossi is the finest example of the Dunning-Kruger effect – that of an incapable leader who thinks he can overcome his incompetence by his arrogance and his lack of humanity towards his troops. The one who was the boss of Alpine for 18 months thought he had understood everything from the start when he was totally misguided.

"His management broke the momentum that had been in place since 2016 to achieve these podiums and this victory. It is to be hoped that the decision taken on Friday to change other faces will be a salutary electroshock for the team.

"If you look at when Renault was successful, you will find a man, Flavio Briatore and a legendary driver, Fernando Alonso, supported by a management which at the time applied this philosophy of rapid decision-making by specialists. Amusing to see that the leaders of F1 are often invited to conferences on management for large groups in order to talk about responsiveness and flexibility. Rarely the opposite..."

Daniel Moxon