The Enstone-based Formula 1 team is working hard to improve its car, the A524. They want to climb higher up the grid. But despite their efforts, they’re still far from where Renault, their parent company, wants them to be.
Last summer, the team made a big change. They replaced their team principal, Otmar Szafnauer, with Bruno Famin. Renault’s top bosses were impatient to see results and thought the change would speed things up. But instead, things went downhill.
Szafnauer believes one big problem is too much interference from higher-ups, like Renault’s CEO Luca de Meo. He says successful teams keep the road car side separate from F1.
Szafnauer thinks racing and making road cars are very different. While they both involve cars, everything else is different, from the technology to the engineering. In F1, you need top-notch engineers who love the sport and are motivated to win.
He says car companies like Renault don’t have the same focus on winning. People there care more about their careers than the car program. In F1, the only thing that matters is performance on the track.
Szafnauer worries that meddling from higher-ups not only hurts the team in the short term but also makes it harder to attract top talent in the long run.
Famin recently blamed the team’s current problems on the previous management. But Szafnauer disagrees. He says he left before the team started working on the 2024 car, so he couldn’t be responsible for its problems. He believes the issues run deeper than just the people in charge.
