Neno wrote: ↑05 Mar 2023, 14:15
There is a lot of wrong doings in Enstone. It's hard to pin point who is exactly to blame. It's not just one person. And all new facilities, all investments and hiring over 300 people feel now like huge waste of money. I dont think even making internal changes and shuffling anymore can help situation. It's just a big f mess. I dont think anyone wants to hear that. But that an actual fact and situation in what Alpine is right now.
Renault as manufacturer completely botched their re-entry in F1 in 2016 and since then done only marginal improvements. And had nowhere near improvements or achievements since then to call this stint success. They are simply unable to build fast F1 cars anymore. My personal opinion is there is not enough talented people, designers in Enstone who know how to do it. And over years they were unable from management stand point recognize and hire people who know how to build fast cars.
At this point selling a team would be best case scenario. Because I dont see anything changes in next month, next year, next decade or even next century.
The issues start from the top. De Meo should have recruited Dan Fallows and Eric Blandin and a bunch of the people who went from Mercedes HPP to RBPT. Instead, Aston Martin took Fallows and Blandin, and RB took the Merc PU people.
Why would people like Blandin and Fallows choose a customer team rather than a works outfit like Alpine to try and push it up the grid. Before the transfers, Racing Point and Alpine were both middling teams. Why didn't they pick Alpine, a team who controls it's only engine supply and has it's own windtunnel?
There's a serious lack of ambition in every move this team continues to make, from the signing of Ocon for 4 years, to losing the Alonso-Piastri lineup, the hiring of Otmar, the inability to look attractive to very talented technical staff, and the lack of investment. Everything they've done since the beginning of the hybrid era has been "too little too late" and it ends up costing them more to do things shoddily the first time, and then have to do an overhaul of a bad design the next year. People like to make excuses about the resources of the big 3, but Aston Martin put paid to that.
Some will say Aston Martin don't make this and that and buy this and that, but the reality is you only take the hit on the investment in a gearbox and a suspension in the first year of the new regulations (As long as you were incompetent enough to build the wrong design from the outset, which is what Alpine did...). From the second year onwards you shouldn't need to spend any more money on those components beyond small refinements. Alpine shouldn't have had to "redesign" their suspension in the second year, after "redesigning it" for the first year. That's incompetence. Everything smacks of "not good enough". The trajectory of this team does not make sense. They don't have a "do anything it takes to win" attitude otherwise they would have bought out Ocon's contract in order to keep Alonso and Piastri.
Alpine/Renault realized that the marketing still works even if they aren't the best and the team makes money too. There's no motivation to seriously change that I see. Engineering isn't special. Drivers aren't special.
If they are serious, they will start a big recruitment campaign from Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull, Aston Martin and start looking towards the 2026 regulations.
A lion must kill its prey.
