End of an era: 'Enstone veteran' Bell (65) leaves Alpine

Bob Bell is to leave Alpine. The experienced engineer - seen as an 'Enstone veteran' had three different tenures with the French formation from 1997 but is now calling it quits. The 65-year-old Northern Irishman had been with Alpine as a part-time consultant since 2018.

Bell held several positions at Enstone, including that of technical director and team boss. In recent years, Bell had already stopped being directly involved in Formula 1 work. He worked at Alpine Labs, an organisation set up to research the use of racing technology in other areas.

Personnel changes at F1 level too

At Alpine, it was announced earlier this week that at the technical level, there will be a change of direction. There will be three technical directors with immediate effect. This is offset by the departure of technical director Matt Harman and head of aerodynamics Dirk de Beer. They will be replaced by three people in three specialised technical roles. Joe Burnell is the technical director of engineering, David Wheater is the technical director of aerodynamics and Ciaron Pilbeam is the technical director of performance.