F1 News: Red Bull and Ferrari LOSE engineers to rival Alpine team

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Red Bull and Ferrari LOSE engineers to rival F1 team

The team are looking to move forward on the grid

Rhys Thomas

Thursday 4 July 2024 04:00

A Formula 1 team has lured engineers away from rivals at the sharp end of the grid as they aim to improve their form.

As recently as June, Williams announced they would be signing 26 members of staff from various teams around the paddock.

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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, the BBC report that three 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?

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

Now, the team have 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 whilst chief technical officer Pat Fry, technical director Matt Harman, and head of aerodynamics Dirk de Beer left.

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 back in the right direction after what has been a drastic decline after 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.

Having scored points in the previous four races after slipping to the very back of the field at the beginning of the 2024 season, Alpine's key hires will look to accelerate the team's forward momentum.

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