Struggling F1 team told key leadership trait missing as new boss quip made
Bruno Famin has been in his current role since July 2023.
Alpine have been told they need someone who knows Enstone “inside and out” as Bruno Famin prepares to guide the team in 2024.
Famin was installed as interim team principal following Otmar Szafnauer’s sacking last season but has been promoted to the role full time in 2024 alongside his other duty as vice president of Alpine Motorsport.
But Sky Sports’ Ted Kravitz has questioned the leadership skills of Famin and suggested they need someone in that role who knows the team inside and out.
Questions raised about leadership of Alpine’s Bruno Famin
It has been a period of change for many team principals in recent years with Mike Krack, who was appointed Aston Martin boss in January 2022, already being the third-longest serving boss, but one team that has had more change than most is Alpine.
Szafnauer was brought in in February 2022 as the team switched from Renault to Alpine, but he lost his job last summer break after failing to agree an acceptable recovery timeline for the French outfit.
In stepped Famin whose previous role was working on the engine department and his interim title had been dropped ahead of 2024.
“They do have some way to get some performance on the investment side,” Kravitz said on Sky Sports F1’s podcast. “But I think they do need a kind of strong leadership person.
“I’m going to suggest the last person to win two races for that Benetton team Johnny Herbert you know, he makes a good team principal. He knows everything.
“They need someone who knows Enstone inside and out in the way that Flavio [Briatore] did during the glory years of Enstone.”
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The investment Kravitz referred to is Alpine’s selling of a 24 per cent stake of the team to a group of investors for €200m. That investment group has recognisable names such as Ryan Reynolds, Rory McIlroy and Anthony Joshua, which David Croft believes can be utilised to Alpine’s benefit.
“The investment from the Hollywood A-listers and the sporting superstars,” he said. “It’s not just about big names being associated with the team.
“With that brings opportunities to explore avenues in other sports and in other high-profile industries whereby if you use it correctly, you make contacts and you bring people into the team that you might not have thought about in the first place but actually might be the right people to do it.
“And I think we’ve seen Alpine do it, I think we’ll see other teams [do it]. I hate to use the phrase getting into bed but partnering with sporting entities or investment companies that own other sporting groups because Formula 1 cannot operate on an island if it wants to be successful in the future.
“You have to go and seek out where the new coaching methods are, the new ways of running business to still bring performance in. I think you will see other teams doing that more and more in the future.”
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