Aston Martin surprised after stealing key Alpine technical member

Aston Martin surprised everone with the appointment of Executive Director - Technical, Bob Bell. Alpine let the top technical man go, and Mike Krack's team benefited. However, they were surprised by Alpine's attitude.

Alpine saw three top technical people leave right at the start of the Formula 1 season. Matt Harman, Dirk de Beer and Bob Bell left the team. It is not yet known where the first two will start work. But Bob Bell is already sorted. Indeed, just after his announced departure from Alpine, Aston Martin announced the signing.

Aston Martin welcomes Bell

"We're fortunate to have recruited someone with a huge amount of experience, with a huge amount of technical knowledge. And I think when you look at what we have on our plate in the years to come, we felt that it is important to strengthen our technical department further. And when someone like that with this calibre is available, then I think it's very important that you try to have that. And yeah, I mean, Bob has started. It was a very good start already. We're quite happy that we managed to have him and let's see what this brings," Krack said in Saudi Arabia.

When asked if Krack was surprised that Bruno Famin, Alpine's team boss, had let Bob go, Krack laughingly said 'yes'. Famin was sitting next to Krack in that same press conference and, just before that, had made a whole speech about his new technical team with three different components. Who ultimately turns out to have the best people in-house will become clear at the circuit.