Otmar Szafnauer was fired as Alpine team boss in 2023 (Images via Getty)
Former Alpine boss, Otmar Szafnauer, recently shared eyebrow-raising details about the issues he faced during his time with the French team. He shared that certain team departments did not report directly to him and he was asked to bring a devolving change to the team's culture.
Looking back at his stint, he shared on the "High Performance" podcast, that a few team departments like finance, HR, and commercial, did not report to him during one season. They in fact directly contacted Renault's headquarters in France. He said that when he started his job as a team principal, all team departments were supposed to report directly to him. Szafnauer said,
"A few things that went wrong at Alpine. One of which was, I didn't have control of the entire team. I knew straight away...HR didn't report to me, reported up through France; the finance office didn't report to me, reported up through France; the communications department didn't report to me; and the marketing group didn't report to me...and that in itself I knew was going to be problematic [5:20].
