Alpine F1 team POACH Red Bull and Ferrari key staff

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Rising F1 team POACH Red Bull and Ferrari key staff

The team are looking to move forward on the grid

Rhys Thomas

Wednesday 3 July 2024 17:57 Updated: 21:04

Red Bull and Ferrari have lost senior engineers as a team below them on the grid works to reverse their downwards trend.

In June, Williams announced 26 new hires, predominantly across their aerodynamics and design team. The fresh faces boasted 12 Constructors’ World Championships and 13 Drivers’ World Championships between them.

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Alpine have become the latest team to sign experienced and successful staff to the performance wing of their operations.

As the French team continue to bounce back from a torrid start to 2024, BBC sport reports that three new engineers started work for Alpine this week.

Alpine have made some key signings in a bid to improve performance

Two of the three hires join Alpine from Red Bull

Who are Alpine's new hires?

In May, Alpine appointed ex-Ferrari chief engineer David Sanchez as the team's executive technical director after his brief stint at McLaren.

Then, in June, controversial ex-team principal Flavio Briatore made a shock return to Enstone as executive advisor.

The team have now reportedly made three more important hires; Michael Broadhurst joins as chief aerodynamicist, having previously been principal aerodynamicist at Red Bull.

Former Ferrari head of simulation Jacopo Fantoni is now Alpine's deputy chief engineer, whilst new head of vehicle performance Vin Dhanani also leaves Red Bull, where he held the role of vehicle performance team leader.

An Alpine spokesperson told the BBC: “It is pleasing that an increased number of top talents are joining the team as we continue to enhance our technical structure across our three key pillars: aerodynamics, performance and engineering."

This follows almost a year of agitation at Enstone from when the team sacked chief executive officer Laurent Rossi, team principal Otmar Szafnauer, and sporting director Alan Permane. Within the same year, chief technical officer Pat Fry, technical director Matt Harman, and head of aerodynamics Dirk de Beer all left of their own accord.

Ex-Ferrari chief engineer David Sanchez (left) joined Alpine in June

Harman has now become the headline appointee of Williams' carousel of technical talent, having previously worked on a number of Lewis Hamilton's championship-winning cars at Mercedes.

For Alpine, though, they appear to be moving in the right direction again after what has been a drastic decline since finishing fourth in 2022.

They have stopped wheeling out their '100 race plan' rhetoric, which outlined a vision to compete for titles in the near future but was repeatedly restarted, though an Alpine spokesperson did not shy away from telling the BBC of their championship-winning ambitions.

“The team is growing World Championship-winning potential across the board in order to be contenders at the front of the grid once again,” the spokesperson said.

The team have scored points in the past four races, making somewhat of a comeback after slipping to the very back of the field at the beginning of this season.

These key hires will look to accelerate the team's forward momentum further into Silverstone this weekend and beyond.

Pierre Gasly recently renewed his contract, but Esteban Ocon will depart ahead of the 2025 season, with his seat yet to be filled.