Former Aphine Chief Otmar Szafnauer has made it clear that he was not accountable for Alpine losing out on Oscar Piastri, who found himself at the center of a well-known contract dispute between the French team and McLaren, ultimately securing a seat with the Woking outfit for 2023. The situation began when Alpine announced, just one day after Fernando Alonso's departure to Aston Martin in early August 2022, that Piastri would be racing for them in the following season, despite him being a part of their academy program.
However, only two hours later, Piastri took to X (formerly Twitter) to state that he would not be driving for Alpine, as the announcement was made without his consent. It soon became apparent that Piastri had instead signed a contract with McLaren.
The dispute was later reviewed by the Contract Recognition Board (CRB), which determined that McLaren’s agreement with Piastri signed in July was the valid contract. Following this, Alpine brought Pierre Gasly on board to partner Esteban Ocon, while Piastri continued his rise with McLaren.
Szafnauer was Team Principal at Alpine during this contract debacle and left his position after the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix. Speaking on the High Performance Podcast, he reflected on issues he noticed within the team upon joining in early 2022.
“There’s a few things that went wrong at Alpine, one of which was I didn’t have control over the entire team. So, for example, I knew straight away, HR didn’t report to me – [they] reported up through France. The finance office didn’t report to me – [they] reported up through France. The communications department didn’t report to me, and the marketing group/commercial didn’t report to me, and that in itself I knew was going to be problematic," the 60-year-old said.
When asked if he was aware of this before taking the job, Szafnauer replied: “No. Before I took the job, it was ‘everybody’s reporting to me’ – I get there and that’s not the case. And I knew at the beginning… I thought I could manage it, but I knew it’s problematic, and I remember I had absolutely nothing to do with not signing Oscar Piastri correctly. That mistake was made in November [2021] – I started in March [2022].”
He added, “In November, the Piastri contract was meant to be signed – it was never signed. I started [in] March, I had no idea. They didn’t submit the CRB documents correctly and never signed a contract with him.”
Szafnauer also criticized how Alpine handled the aftermath of the CRB’s decision regarding Piastri’s contract. “Come the CRB where Alpine lost because the filings were incorrectly done, we put out a press release and the press release has my image on it,” he said. “So, number one, nothing to do with me – I wasn’t even there – but, number two, the communications department that didn’t report to me thought it was a good idea to deflect the incompetency of those that were Alpine at the time by putting my picture on the release.”
Despite the fallout, Szafnauer believes Alpine ultimately fulfilled their obligations to Piastri, even without a signed contract. “Although they didn’t sign the contract in time, what was in that contract we delivered to Oscar, and that was not insignificant,” he remarked. “It was 5,000km in a two-year-old car – that costs you a lot of money. And we did that, we absolutely did everything that was meant to be done by that contract that was never signed. In English law, had we taken it to an English court, maybe we would have won. That’s unjust enrichment – yeah, you didn’t sign the contract, but you took all this and you’re not delivering what you’re supposed to deliver.”
