How an ex-Alpine F1 team principal was brutally sacked on Zoom

Otmar Szafnauer has detailed how he was sacked by Alpine, with Renault bosses informing him over Zoom.

Szafnauer was dismissed as Alpine F1 team principal during the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix weekend.

He had only been in charge for 18 months after switching from Aston Martin.

While Alpine were still no closer to challenging at the front of the grid, they were clearly ahead of the midfield, picking up two podiums during the 2023 campaign.

However, it wasn’t enough for Renault’s top management, who sacked him during the race weekend at Spa-Francorchamps.

Reflecting on his dismissal, Szafnauer told the High Performance podcast:  "[It was delivered] just in a Zoom call from the head of Renault HR. The Renault Group HR," Szafnauer said.

Expanding further on his sacking, Szafnauer revealed there was a difference in opinion on how the team culture needed to be changed.

He said: “There were suggestions that I needed to change the corporate culture in a way that I didn't think was the right way to do it.

“I know how to change corporate culture into a culture that has a winning mentality and psychological safety which I was on my way of doing.

“They wanted a corporate culture change in a different manner to get rid of some people that were doing a good job that have been there for a long time. And my thought was, well, if you get rid of people that do a good job, then the message you send is: do a good job, get fired. That's not the culture that you really want.”

In the American’s absence, Alpine endured a miserable 2024 campaign.

They sit ninth in the F1 constructors’ championship and have abandoned their engine project for 2026.

Assessing Alpine’s struggles, he added: “It's not because I left. It's because a mass of people left.

“Those people who left actually did a good job. Most of them are at other teams now.”