Former Alpine chief Otmar Szafnauer claims he had ‘absolutely nothing to do’ with team missing out on signing Oscar Piastri

“So, for example, I knew straight away, HR didn’t report to me – [they] reported up through France. The finance office didn’t report to me – [they] reported up through France. The communications department didn’t report to me, and the marketing group/commercial didn’t report to me, and that in itself I knew was going to be problematic.”

Pushed on whether he was aware of this before taking up the position, Szafnauer continued: “No. Before I took the job, it was ‘everybody’s reporting to me’ – I get there and that’s not the case.

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“And I knew at the beginning… I thought I could manage it, but I knew it’s problematic, and I remember I had absolutely nothing to do with not signing Oscar Piastri correctly. That mistake was made in November [2021] – I started in March [2022].

“In November, the Piastri contract was meant to be signed – it was never signed. I started [in] March, I had no idea. They didn’t submit the CRB documents correctly and never signed a contract with him.”

Szafnauer went on to criticise Alpine for the way in which he felt they handled the situation following the CRB decision over Piastri’s contract.

“Come the CRB where Alpine lost because the filings were incorrectly done, we put out a press release and the press release has my image on it,” the former team boss said.