'Changes coming' at Alpine after Rossi outburst

Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer says "changes are coming" at the Enstone squad as a result of the recent warning fired by Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi.

Earlier this month, in successive interviews with French broadcaster Canal+ and with Formula 1's official website published ahead of the Miami Grand Prix, Rossi denounced Alpine's underperformance this season, calling out the team's "poor execution" and "amateurish" approach.

As part of his scathing criticism, Rossi also said that he "would not until the end of the year" to make changes if Alpine keeps underdelivering.

Szafnauer did not divulge what changes are in store for Alpine, but the American confirmed in Monaco on Friday that changes are on their way.

"In the first races, we had a couple of good ones, like we said, up and down, and a couple of them that should have gone better," he explained.

"And when we make mistakes, or when team members make mistakes, we have to make sure we understand the root cause of those mistakes, and then put countermeasures in place so that we never do them again.

"There are two aspects to Formula 1 racing, one of which is the racing part – we have 1,000 people that work at Enstone and 350 in Viry, and of those, 100 travel to the races here, so they're extracting every bit of the underlying performance of the car, that's one element of it.

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"But there's also the underlying performance of the car and that happens at Enstone.

"We're working hard to make sure that we deliver on improving this year's car the best we can. I think we did a good job last year of in-season improvements.

"I think we're not happy because we're not Red Bull. However, within our immediate competition, we made gains on both Ferrari and Mercedes, and the outlier this year is Aston, going from seventh to being the second, third fastest car.

"So we hit most of our targets - not all of them - over the winter, and for us to hit all of them we have to make some changes within the organisation and those changes are coming."

Rossi's brutal assessment of Alpine made clear that the buck stops with the outfit's team principal. But Szafnauer, whose vast experience and impeccable track record are undisputed, knows what he needs to take Alpine to the next level.

"I've been there just over a year now and I spent the first six, seven, eight months assessing deeply as to the team, the structure, how it operates, how it functions, the good, the bad, the indifferent, and I have a good understanding," he said.

"I've been doing this for 25 years at a very senior level and I know what it takes to move a team from, say, last to fourth or mid-grid to second.

"So, I have an understanding and the plans are in place."

Rossi has undoubtedly raised the stakes at Alpine and turned on the pressure. But Szafnauer says his crews automatically turn up the heat when the going gets tough.

"We put pressure on ourselves if we're not winning, we all do," he said.

"We don't have a Red Bull here. Red Bull are happy and the rest of us are working hard to catch up."

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