When Renault took over the Enstone team formerly known as ‘Lotus’ and turned them into a full factory outfit once more in 2016, they had a plan.
“The roadmap that we have in mind… is to be in the podium after three or four years,” then-managing director Cyril Abiteboul revealed at the launch of the Renault’s first F1 car in 2016.While Abiteboul’s vision was eventually realised in 2020 with multiple top three finishes for Daniel Ricciardo, it was not enough for the French manufacturer to remain committed to having their name emblazoned on their team’s Formula 1 cars into the future, or to keep Abiteboul in his leadership role in the team.
Instead, a rebrand to Alpine for 2021 marked a fresh start with fresh opportunities, as well as a revised target for the future. Driver Fernando Alonso would later encapsulate Alpine’s renewed mentality and overall dedication to the future by coining the mantra of “El Plan”.
With Abiteboul departing, newly appointed Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi took over as team leader – temporarily, it would turn out – while the team also carried out the rare act of dipping into the well of talent in Moto GP and hired Suzuki team manager Davide Brivio, fresh from a world championship, to be Alpine’s new racing director. Marcin Budkowski was made an executive director of the team to bolster the team’s leadership structure heading into the first year under the Alpine banner.
Rossi made it very clear that, for the team, there was a new target in their sites – and the ambitions went far beyond mere podiums. The new timeframe for success was now 100 races – roughly over five seasons beginning in 2021 – to become a championship winning team.
To do that, they needed not only a strong management structure, but drivers who were capable of buying into the system and helping to provide the on-track results needed to grow over the next few seasons.
Who better, then, than two time world champion and Formula 1 retiree Fernando Alonso? Having taken the Enstone team carrying the Renault name to both his championships in 2005 and 2006, Alonso opted to return to the sport to complete his mission of claiming that elusive third crown.
The major regulations rewrite for 2022 and the opportunities they offer over the seasons to come was ultimately what drew Alonso back to being a full time F1 driver. His return in 2021 was about proving to the team and to the watching world that one of the most celebrated drivers of his generation had lost none of his speed or his killer instinct during his two years away from Formula 1.
He achieved just that, showing that he was more than still capable of battling side-by-side with old rival Lewis Hamilton in a faster Mercedes despite crossing 40 years of age – the point in which only the most elite drivers tend to capable of maintaining the high level of performance needed to stake a claim to one of the 20 seats on the grid.
In the summer, Ocon signed up with the team for 2022 and beyond, before Alonso’s future with the team was confirmed weeks later, as was expected. It was a solid driver line up Alpine to prepare for their entry into the new era of Formula 1.
But the restructuring of Alpine was by no means over and by the end of the year, rumours were abound that Aston Martin CEO Otmar Szafnauer was being courted to join the Alpine project as team principal. While Szafnauer himself initially dismissed the rumours as “misinformation”, eyebrows were later raised in January when it was announced that Szafnauer was indeed leaving Aston Martin. Once Alpine and Budkowski agreed to go their separate ways, there was a convenient space as team principal for Szafnauer to potentially fill.
Then, just days ago, Szafnauer was confirmed, but the Alpine structure had changed once again. Joining was former FIA deputy secretary general for sport, Bruno Famin, who will oversee Renault’s power unit factory in Viry Chatillon in France. No minor role, given that Viry only supplies Renault power units to Alpine and the engine freeze incoming until the next generation of power units is agreed and implemented in around four years’ time.
That long-term thinking is also evident in the Brivio being named director of racing expansion projects, which not only sees him oversee Alpine’s programmes in all international racing series such as the World Endurance Championship and future endeavours, but also having a major role in the Alpine Academy – the team’s junior driver programme. While having boasted arguably the brightest F1 junior prospect since Charles Leclerc in the form of Oscar Piastri, a lack of free seats in the team’s two cars sees the young Australian take a reserve role for this season – almost surely the only year in which he’ll be sidelined from the F1 grid.
Alonso and Ocon will likely both be looking to move closer to the front of the field in 2022 but, this year more than any, it’s almost impossible to judge what could happen when the radical new cars are let loose in anger at Bahrain. But when the team do unveil their new car on Monday, it will be with the confidence of knowing they now feel they have all the pieces in execute ‘El Plan’ and begin the process of turning their dreams of championship glory into a reality.
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JohnnyRye (@)
20th February 2022, 18:59
Sights not sites
amian
20th February 2022, 20:57
Red Bull haven’t revealed their car yet, so we’re currently on 8. What they did was a joke and looks like they will not present the car in any other way than on the track, isn’t it so?
Robert
20th February 2022, 22:26
From the top of my head:
Mercedes – Real car on track
RedBull – Showcar + few spy pics
Ferrari – Real car on track
McLaren – Pictures/Renders
Alpine –
AlphaTauri – Renders
Aston Martin – Real car on track
Williams – Showcar + few pics of the front of Real car on track
Alfa Romeo – spy pics
Haas – Pictures/Renders
So depending how you see things and what you believe, only Mercedes, Ferrari, and Aston Martin have really showed their cars. Williams are still hiding half of their real car with limited camera angles. McLaren, AlphaTauri, and Haas have shown something that could be their real cars – but we don’t know yet for sure. Alfa Romeo haven’t showed their car yet, but people have seen it anyway. RedBull have showed a livery on a car we definitely know isn’t the real thing, which we know because of a few blurry spy pics. And finally Alpine, who are still hiding holding their cards successfully. Pre-season still in full swing!
Chris Lloyd (@chrisr1718)
21st February 2022, 10:30
We don’t really know if what we’ve seen so far, from any team, will be the finished product that we’ll see in Bahrain.
Robert
21st February 2022, 17:00
Sure, there will certainly be lots of development everywhere. But those that have shown real cars running are much more likely to stay true to the overall concept. Those with just renders could be completely different.
Coventry Climax
21st February 2022, 0:40
As an ‘El Plan’, it sounds rather meagre. Getting some new people here and there, some youngsters in the academy and then that’s it? Nothing about getting chassis, aerodynamics and powerplant to being the absolute top? Does it matter who runs the academy and who you run through it, if the F1 car they eventually are supposed to end up in doesn’t deliver?
Good luck.
Coventry Climax
21st February 2022, 0:43
Then Abiteboul’s plan, ‘.. to be in the podium after three or four years’ sounded a lot more achievable.
DB-C90 (@dbradock)
21st February 2022, 10:06
They seem to have made an art form out of mediocrity don’t they.
And people wonder why RBR got so frustrated at their inability to actually plan and execute any improvement to their PU in 2014/5/6
KaIIe (@kaiie)
21st February 2022, 14:19
This plan goes into the category “I believe it when I see it”. I think this is the third five-year plan for the Enstone team in the past decade or so, or at least it seems like they are focusing on rebuilding every few years and setting their sights far into the future.
Renee (@renee)
21st February 2022, 17:22
The author should really proofread the article before publishing it. Although I’m pretty fluent in English but still not a native speaker, I got caught up quite a few times trying to figure out what words were missing from sentences.
These mistakes should not happen. Especially as this isn’t a time sensitive article. 5 minutes to make sure all the words and the structure of the sentences is correct would’ve been justified.
RocketTankski
22nd February 2022, 21:29
My lord, I have a cunning plan that cannot fail..