Prost SLAMS Alpine 'incompetence' after staff exodus

Alain Prost

Prost SLAMS Alpine 'incompetence' after staff exodus

Four-time world champion blasts French team over 'arrogance' of former CEO

Lauren Sneath

Monday 31 July 2023 18:57

Alain Prost has issued vitriolic criticism of the current state of affairs at Alpine, after it was announced that team principal Otmar Szafnauer and sporting director Alan Permane are to leave the team only a week after the announcement that Laurent Rossi has been replaced as CEO.

The four-time world champion had a long relationship with Renault and was a non-executive director there until leaving in 2022.

At the time, Prost said he was ‘very disappointed’ at how the news of his departure was handled and added: "It was agreed that we would announce together with Alpine! No respect sorry!”

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Now, Prost has taken aim at the team over the ‘incompetence’ and ‘arrogance’ of Rossi as he discussed the reasons for Alpine’s decline.

In a column for L’Equipe, Prost wrote of the news: “I love this team and seeing it in this state today saddens me. It deserves better and has all the assets to get there.

"I just believe that you have to rely on history to understand the error. If you look at the great successes of the last 30 years, you will find a simple structure, detached from an industrial organisation chart, built around three or four strong personalities coupled with a champion driver."

Prost: Rossi was totally misguided

The former Williams driver suggested that Rossi was an ‘incapable’ leader of the team, and said it was Rossi who ended the momentum the team has built up to 2016.

He wrote: "During my years at Renault, how many times have I heard in the corridors of the headquarters in Boulogne-Billancourt that F1 was a simple sport that could be run from home by men in place? Big mistake – as proven by the last of the leaders, Laurent Rossi, from whom [Renault CEO] Luca de Meo separated a week ago.

"Laurent Rossi is the finest example of the Dunning-Kruger effect – that of an incapable leader who thinks he can overcome his incompetence by his arrogance and his lack of humanity towards his troops.

“The one who was the boss of Alpine for 18 months thought he had understood everything from the start when he was totally misguided.

"His management broke the momentum that had been in place since 2016 to achieve these podiums and this victory.”

'Legendary' Fernando Alonso was world champion with Renault

Prost added: “It is to be hoped that the decision taken on Friday to change other faces will be a salutary electroshock for the team.

"If you look at when Renault was successful, you will find a man, Flavio Briatore and a legendary driver, Fernando Alonso, supported by a management which at the time applied this philosophy of rapid decision-making by specialists.

“Amusing to see that the leaders of F1 are often invited to conferences on management for large groups in order to talk about responsiveness and flexibility. Rarely the opposite..."