Alpine’s Interim Formula 1 boss Bruno Famin has underlined how he’s aiming to reverse the failures of previous regimes by not attaching a date to achieve certain targets.
Alpine entered the latest campaign aiming to consolidate the fourth position it secured last year while also reducing the seismic deficit that existed to the top three sides.
But the Anglo-French outfit endured a tumultuous season and slumped to a lonely sixth place in the Constructors’ standings, behind both McLaren and Aston Martin.
Despite various changes at the helm since the Renault Group revived its F1 involvement in 2016, the Enstone squad has been unable to become an established front-runner, registering a best placing of fourth on two occasions before regressing the next year.
Amid its sluggish start, Team Principal Otmar Szafnauer and Sporting Director Alan Permane both departed Alpine after July’s Belgian Grand Prix, while ex-CEO Laurent Rossi was moved aside into another role.
Famin, who previously oversaw Alpine’s engine development, transitioned into the position of Interim Team Principal, which appears to have become a permanent role.
The Frenchman believes the raft of changes has “untapped potential” within the team’s ranks, culminating in Alpine sustaining a more productive second half of the season.
“The truth is that we’re not where we wanted to be, for sure,” Famin told Autosport. “That’s very clear. But I think with the changes we made mid-season we untapped some potential in the people, I think people are much freer to propose things, to improve.
“I think that’s especially true on the track side, where immediately I saw a change in the mindset. We promoted for example, [Team Manager] Rob Cherry and [Chief Mechanic] Jason Milligan, they are doing a very good job in proposing improvements, in making sure that their guys also propose things.
“I think all this potential was a bit capped until the end of July, and I’m very happy with that. It’s true for the garage, it’s true also for the track engineering, it’s true for the strategy, and we are daring things we were not daring before.
“I’m very happy with that mindset. Of course, the car is still not the one we would like. But we scored more points per race in the second half of the season than in the first one, but we need to keep pushing to develop this momentum.”
Alongside Szafnauer and Permane, Chief Technical Officer Pat Fry coincidentally opted to walk away at the same point to take up the same role of responsibility at Williams.
Fry revealed he exited the Enstone camp for a second time because he considered the side to lack the “enthusiasm” required to progress further to match the top teams.
However, Famin has suggested that he disagrees with the ex-Ferrari and McLaren engineer’s view, claiming that Alpine’s technical division wasn’t “daring” enough.
Expanding on the team’s improved mindset, Famin explained: “I think it seems that you have a tap on everything, nobody was daring. I don’t know why, I am not a psychologist; I don’t want to enter into detail on that one.
“But what is sure now is that to be performant with such a level of competition you need to use the potential of everybody, and you need to align the planets.
“Then we need to be good in extracting the performance of the car, we need to be good in developing the car, in developing the engine, and even if we don’t have the best engine, maybe we don’t have the best car, I think we can align the planets altogether to have a good car at the end of the story, and to have good results.
“Of course, it won’t be for tomorrow, but the work now is to align the planets. Of course, there is the problem of the potential for improvement in the relations between Viry and Enstone, but to me it’s a small part of the project, of the work we need to do.”
He added: “We have a lot of talents, and we need to help them to bring new ideas in developing the car, but also in the way we work. And the idea is to develop the potential of the full team, to develop the potential of the car, and to get a better car and better results.”
Renault’s return to full-time involvement in F1 has been blighted by the team continuously falling short of evolving targets, including both “five-year” and “100 race” plans.
Cyril Abiteboul, now at the helm of Hyundai’s venture in the WEC, and Szafnauer, hired in 2021, fell victim to not hitting objectives that had been specified in the public domain.
“I have no idea of how long it will take, and I don’t want to fix a target,” Famin outlined.
“The objective for this winter and for next year will be to develop that attitude, that mindset, changing the culture. And again is not Viry against Enstone, it’s the whole thing altogether.
“And to continue and to develop the momentum in order to make a better team, a better company and to be able to develop a better car. And then the result will come. How long it will take, I have no clue.”
