Safnauer: I think I am one of the most experienced leaders

Otmar Szafnauer rarely changes from team to team: 24 years ago his Formula 1 career began with BAR, then became the Honda factory team, after which he tied his professional destiny for a long time with Force India, later renamed Racing Point, and then Aston Maarten . He took over as head of Alpine F1 only last February, although his appointment was confirmed in early January.

The works team of the French automaker Renault has the most ambitious task: last fall it was announced that the Alpine F1 will have 100 races to win the championship.

The peculiarity of the team structure is that the base is in Enstone and the engine building department is in Viry, France, and so far Safnauer is mainly concerned with the business of his British part.

“First of all, the Enstone base is the focus of my attention,” says the American manager with Romanian roots. – The unit in Viry is also led by a new person, Bruno Famin. But of course I’m going to take a look there too, but on race days on the track we work closely together. Now I’m working on a program that will bring the two organizations closer together.

So Weary is a very important part of our plan. The team is in constant contact with our engine suppliers and we are free to coordinate our activities.

The funny thing is that in Formula 1 a lot of teams have changed, unlike me, and now that I’ve moved to Alpine I know a lot of the staff from previous work – it helps to get used to it faster. In addition, over the 24 years of my career I have gained some experience – I think I am one of the most experienced team leaders. I also held various positions: at BAR I was director of production, at Force India I was chief operating officer.

I was not the team leader, this position was held by Vijay Mallya, but he only came to the races and rarely visited the base, so I managed all the processes there. I think the experience I will gain then will help me to adapt and improve faster, because after 100 races we have to fight regularly for race and championship wins.

Speaking of the team’s riders, Safnauer spoke highly of Fernando Alonso, calling his contribution to the common cause extremely important, but emphasizing that he had long sympathized with Esteban Okon, with whom he collaborated in Force India in 2017: “I always I think I was one of those who helped him break through in Formula 1. At one point Toto Wolff put a lot of pressure on me and insisted that I bring Pascal Wehrlein to the team, but I chose for Esteban.

I gave him the chance to get behind the wheel of the Force India car, and the rest was up to him, and Esteban showed how good he is at confrontation with other drivers – I think that allowed him to get a place in a other team (in Renault), which I am very happy with. A similar story happened with Sergio Perez: at one point he was out of contract, but then he ended up at Red Bull and that makes me happy too.

Alpine’s plan to achieve really big success after 100 races is realistic, says Safnauer: “So far this is a distant target, but it cannot be said that these kinds of plans are unfounded. Although you have to be realistic and understand that similar goals are set by everyone.

Teams that win now will not give up their claims to leadership even after 100 races. And the closer you are to the top, the harder it is to compete with them.

Therefore, the task is not easy and there can only be one winner. But I believe it is still possible to achieve the goal. We have enough time to prepare all the necessary components of victory. One of the most important elements is that we produce the plants ourselves. We can choose the best riders ourselves, that’s important too.

And we keep working on creating a good chassis, developing efficient aerodynamics, understanding the properties of rubber and other important things. So we have all the ingredients, we just have to keep working with these ingredients – and finally bake a very tasty cake!