De Meo called on Anstone and Weary to cooperate

Luca de Meo recently visited the Alpine F1 base in Enstone to personally inspect the state of affairs, which is very unimportant from his point of view, and also to mobilize everyone for more efficient and productive work. At the same time, the head of the Renault concern made it clear that Bruno Famen will continue to perform the duties of the team leader.

During the Belgian race weekend, Otmar Szafnauer, the team leader, and sporting director Alan Permain were unexpectedly fired, and even before that, Laurent Rossi was fired from his position as executive director of Renault’s sports division.

According to the French press, one of the main points that De Meo tried to convey to the team last Wednesday is this: he really doesn’t like the fact that the team’s two divisions, based in Great Britain and France, where the racing power of Renault units are being developed and created, but still have not learned to interact normally and harmoniously with each other.

He is said to have stated that he no longer wanted to hear of any disagreement between Enstone and Weary and demanded that the recriminations between the British and French units stop immediately.

“The Hundred Years’ War between England and France ended more than a hundred years ago!” – he remembered.

In particular, on the days of the Grand Prix, the Alpine racing team and the Renault mechanics live in different hotels, and in the camper they sit at different tables – at one they speak English, at the other – French.

Next winter an attempt will be made to overcome these divisions and unite the team. For this, 100 employees from Enstone and Viry will go together to a training camp in France, which will be held in a special training center where the country’s elite unit of the national gendarmerie trains.

In addition, Luca de Meo demanded that all production processes at all levels be carried out more intensively, rationally and quickly.

“Can we tolerate that the construction of a new simulator at the Enstone base has been dragging on for two years? In two years you can build an entire car factory that will produce 750,000 cars a year,” said the head of the French concern.

Whether De Meo’s visit to Enstone will help solve the team’s problems will only become clear in the future, but for now it remains to be said that his dissatisfaction is quite understandable: if Alpine F1 finished the season in 4th place last year in the Constructors’ Championship, after 16 races, it now only sits in sixth place, behind its closest rivals, the McLaren team, with 88 points.