“Worst Thing to Do”: Alpine CEO’s Rant Tipped to Demotivate Esteban Ocon & Co. As Dire F1 Overhaul Predicted

Catching everyone by surprise, Alpine punched above their weight in 2022 to secure P4 in the standings ahead of McLaren. Naturally, expectations were high for 2023. Forget about matching the performance from last year, the French team has only managed 14 points so far. Drawn with McLaren on points, Alpine is currently P6 on the table. The disappointing results inspired a tirade by the team CEO, Laurent Rossi, against his own team. First, his team principal took exception to his comments, and now the experts are slamming him for washing his linens out in public, a move that can knock the wind out of Esteban Ocon and his squad’s sails.

Just like last year, Alpine is suffering from some reliability issues. Apart from those, some lousy pit stops and unlucky crashes hampered their progress, which was already under question before the season kicked off. Taking the team to the task, without mentioning names, Rossi dubbed the performance “amateurish”.

Experts slam Laurent Rossi for publically shaming Esteban Ocon & Co.

Alpine may have had their fair share of bad luck until now but we are just 5 races in until now in a very long season. And that is not to say they haven’t had anything to rejoice about. Ocon and Pierre Gasly have shown that the car possesses pace which they exploited on a couple of outings. That makes Rossi’s comments all the more cynical according to some.

Discussing his comments on a recent episode of the F1 Nation podcast, journalist Natalie Pinkham said, “You don’t vent publicly. It’s the worst thing to do. It’s like admonishing your kids in front of other people. You’re just embarrassing them. It doesn’t have the impact you want. It doesn’t serve anyone’s purpose.”

Natalie’s co-host Tom Clarkson continued, “Laurent Rossi is not a stupid man. There’s obviously an ulterior motive here. What is it?”

Podcast’s guest, Italian F1 journalist, Roberto Chinchero replied, “I’m sure Laurent Rossi is not a stupid man as you said but at the same time, I think he has not big know-how in motorsport. So, we have to, I think, consider the effect of this kind of speech when you are managing a Formula 1 team.”

“Honestly, I hope that he had a target with that speech. I don’t know if the team principal or if the team manager or someone because it didn’t specify anything. If you say we are amateurish, what does it mean? Because the car was fast on some tracks,” he added. “We are still trying to understand what this car can achieve because sometimes it’s in the top 10. Sometimes, it’s far, it’s difficult. But, if you speak in that way, I don’t understand.”

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While team principal Otmar Szafnauer rebuked Rossi’s comments publically as well, he also laid out a plan for the fans to know that the team is not just resting on its last year’s laurels.

Otmar Szafnauer reveals the plan to take Gasly and Ocon back to the top

Szafnauer refused to put the blame on individuals and lauded their efforts. The area where he believes the team lacks is the technical department. The team boss revealed those factors while revealing the ‘100 race plan’. According to the plan, the team aims to compete for the top spot after 100 races, a quarter of which they have already completed.

As per The Race, Otmar said, “There’s around 75 races [left in the plan]. It’s three and a half years. And within that three and a half years, you get a new simulator, you get a new head of simulation, you get a new [software] system. They are things to come. Once they come then we’ll take those steps.”

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It will be interesting to see how much progress Alpine can make in the current year. As of now, they are nowhere near to defending their P4 finish from last year, which is also because of Aston Martin’s meteoric resurgence.