There has been a lot of speculation as to what Alpine will do with the management structure of their team. Many suggested that Otmar Szafnauer would be moving from Aston Martin to Alpine and when Marcin Budkowski was recently released, many felt Otmar’s announcement was imminent.

We did get an announcement but perhaps it is different than what we expected. It seems that Alpine is promoting Pat Fry to Chief Technical Officer and Matt Hartman as Technical Director.

Alpine Press Release:

Alpine F1 Team is pleased to announce the promotions of Pat Fry to the role of Chief Technical Officer and Matt Harman as Technical Director.

This decision is part of a new organization designed to maximise the team’s performance, initiated in November 2021. Their mission is to contribute to developing the car’s performance to achieve the objectives defined by Luca de Meo, CEO of the Renault Group, and Laurent Rossi, Alpine CEO, to fight for the championship within 100 races after Alpine’s arrival into F1.

As CTO, Pat Fry will oversee all technical activities in Enstone, and will be responsible for setting the performance target of the car, defining the technical capabilities and competencies needed and identify future technologies and disruptors. He will ultimately arbitrate on major performance trade-offs and risks, and set the long term development strategy to maximise performance within the constraints of the cost cap.

Matt Harman, previously Engineering Director, will now take responsibility for delivering performance and experiments to the track, structuring the technical organisation and processes, plus growing talents and teams. He will oversee chassis technical direction and bring to the team his unique experience in chassis / power unit technical integration and trade-offs. Matt’s background as PU engineer will help strengthen the link to the engine department at Viry and further optimise PU integration. Matt was recruited from Mercedes in 2018, where he spent 18 years, covering a wide range of chassis projects.

Laurent Rossi, CEO of Alpine, said: “We are considerably strengthening Alpine F1 Team by having Pat and Matt at the helm of Engineering in Enstone. Pat is one of the most experienced engineers in Formula 1, while Matt’s drive and expertise will prove critical in extracting the full potential of our race cars, thanks in particular to his unique expertise combining chassis and engine development.”