Vowles advises Alpine: 'That approach is remarkably meaningless'

F1 News

James Vowles gives Alpine advice multi-year plans
22 August at 12:59
Last update 22 August at 14:50
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  • GPblog.com

At Alpine, there were all multi-year plans in recent years, but what has mostly come of it is vacancies in the team's management. Williams team boss James Vowles explains that such multi-year plans don't work and, with the arrival of Pat Fry, is showing Alpine how it works.

Otmar Szafnauer and Alan Permane have been gone from Alpine since the Belgian GP. CEO Laurent Rossi left earlier and Pat Fry is also no longer employed by the French team. Instead, Fry now works as technical director at the Williams team. Whereas Alpine is clearly struggling with its organisational structure and with bringing about a clear vision, Vowles seems to know exactly what he is doing.

Vowles leads Alpine by example

The Brit sets the collaboration with Fry as an example of how things should be done. After all, building an F1 team takes time and people should be given that time by the team. Motorsport.com quotes the team boss: "Same with Pat [Fry] when he joined. Pat was very clear to me on ‘This will take a while’. I said: ‘I know, and the board know as well’."

At Alpine, this was not the case. On the one hand, the team sets impossible goals over a random number of years or races; on the other, the team does not give the leaders time to make the plans a reality. Vowles: "Setting a target of saying we’re going to be third in five years is honestly not the right direction of travel because it’s a remarkably meaningless thing."