Alpine sixth in constructors' championship with 14 points after five rounds; French team have finished point-less at two GPs in 2023; Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi says team are making too many mistakes and he will make changes quickly if there is not an upturn in fortunes
Tuesday 9 May 2023 10:42, UK
Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi says he "won't wait until the end of the year" to make changes at its Formula 1 team if their 2023 form does not upturn quickly.
The French outfit finished fourth in the constructors' championship last season but are sixth in the standings after five rounds in 2023, level with McLaren on 14 points and already 64 points behind the top four teams.
Alpine finished eighth and ninth at the Miami GP to bounce back from a torrid weekend at the Azerbaijan GP which had featured a car fire, crashes and pit-lane starts.
The team also suffered a difficult start to the season when Esteban Ocon picked up a hat-trick of in-race penalties in Bahrain before Ocon and team-mate Pierre Gasly collided on the final restart of the Australian GP to lose a double-points finish.
Speaking to Canal+ on Saturday, Rossi had labelled Alpine's performances "unacceptable" and even "amateurish", and in a wider interview with F1.com in America he warned of consequences if there was an abrupt change.
"It starts with owning up to your mistakes, to not repeat the mistakes, to learn from your mistakes," Rossi said.
"It's okay to make mistakes, it's not okay to make them twice because it means you didn't learn. This year, there is a lot of excuses, which lead to poor performance and a lack of operational excellence.
"I need to tackle this, I need the right people to tackle this. I need the team to be aware they need to do that as it's not up to me - it's up to them, they have to do it. It's their responsibility. I hope they make the same diagnosis. I will make it clear to them that this is the diagnosis and they need to fix that."
Rossi reiterated it is Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer's duty to oversee an improvement at the Enstone-based team
"He is responsible for the performance of the team - that's his job," says Rossi.
"There is no hiding here. Otmar was brought in to steer the team, through the season and the next seasons towards the objectives that we have, which is to constantly make progress, as we did in the first two years - fifth and fourth - and to get to the podiums and therefore, this is his mission to turn this team around and bring it to the performance that we want.
"We had a team that performed reasonably well last year, got the fourth position which is the best improvement we had in a long time. It showed a lot of promise. It's more of less the same people so I don't accept that we are not capable of maintaining that.
"Yes, it is Otmar and the rest of his team as Otmar alone doesn't do everything, but the buck stops with Otmar. It's Otmar's responsibility, yes."
While retaining fourth in the constructors' championship already looks a tall order this year following Aston Martin's jump from seventh to front-runners, Rossi has no intention of lowering season aspirations.
"It's too early to do that - and I don't want to give people the comfort," he said. "I don't enter a competition and reset my objective because it's easier.
"The team managed to get fourth. They have the means to get fourth, more so than others. I want them to be fourth. If they don't, it's going to be a failure.
"If they fail by giving 500 per cent best and turning this ship around, there will be extenuating circumstances and it bodes well for the future.
"If not, it's the rule of business, there's going to be consequences. And I won't wait until the end of the year.
"The trajectory is not good. We need to fix the mindset of the team ASAP."
Formula 1 returns to Imola for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix from May 19-21. Watch every session live on Sky Sports F1 including the race from 2pm on Sunday May 21.
