It was no great surprise today to see that the Alpine F1 Team has parted company with Marcin Budkowski, its Executive Director. Budkowski is expected to move across to Aston Martin and the word for some weeks has long been that Otmar Szafnauer, who recently departed Aston Martin, will take his place at Enstone. If a swap turns out to the case, there is no reason for either team to wait for “gardening leave”, as they can simply agree to make things easier for all concerned and cancel the delays.
Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi will temporarily take over running the F1 operation, although the day-to-day running of the team will continue with the current heads of department.
joeblogsf1 
You had indicated that this is likely to happen.
A little game of musical chairs is always fun to watch but the teams which are winning in F1 usually keep a pretty stable management, at least at the top level. Counting Vasseur, Sfaznauer will be the fourth team principal at Renault in six years, that’s a fairly high turnover and that doesn’t count Brivio whose present and future role is still very much unclear. Does Fernando have his hands all over this one ? And what about Vettel at Aston Martin ? If I remember things correctly, Otmar had a pretty big influence in his arrival at Aston.
Very intriguing, but I wonder if Stroll is experiencing a form of what many manufacturers who entered (and left) F1 over the years experienced? In that success in one industry is no guarantee of success in F1. For ’23 he needs to get a proper #1 like say Gasly and move Lance into an Aston Sports car team. I think Lance’s skills are much better suited for endurance racing with two or three other drivers. He’s a quality driver, but there are far too few weekends where the planets align for him and he shines. Alpine has improved, hard to say if 🌸🐄⛷️ has the skills they need to move forward. Zak Brown against all of the odds put together a group focused on the long term and it has worked. Does Stroll have the patience to stick with a long-term vision?
Is Brivio still at Alpine? I was never 100% sure of what their management structure was. Best of luck to both sides either way.
Yes and apparently he’s not moving
Purely on the basis of guesswork, I’m tempted to think that Otmar and Stroll Snr did not have a conducive working relationship.
What, I wonder, would compel the diplomatic accommodating Otmar to jump ship?
You think he jumped ship?
Joe, I can see why Alpine wants Szafnauer. I do not know Budkowski – how do you rate him?
He’s very clever
Commenter to Joe on Budkowski:
“Do you rate him?”
Joe:
“He’s very clever”
🤔
Is anyone else getting “I really like him and respect him, but I’m not honestly convinced that he’s right for that role” vibes?
Or am I reading more between the lines than is actually there?
Don’t read too much into my remark. I really like him and respect him as well.
Care to comment at all about the fact that Mercedes trying to hold F1 hostage about the way that the season ending went?
If they are trying, they will fail
I think you might find there is a non F1 person about to be announced as F1 CEO at AM. …. Though as usual this is not something to post on the blog.. Glad you are back from holiday we have missed your posts…
So would be the winner in this swap around ?
*So who
Hi Joe, was Mike Krack on your radar as the new Aston Martin Team Principal?
Can you still see Budkowski heading there and if so, in what capacity?
No