Alpine, in crisis, confirms two new departures from its technical management
While the French-English team secured the last two spots for qualification in Bahrain during the first race of the season, rumors suggested that two key technical directors had decided to leave the team. These pieces of information were confirmed a few days later.
Saturday evening, as soon as the end of the Grand Prix, rumors had mentioned the departure of two key people within the technical department of Alpine: Matt Harman (Technical Director) and Dirk de Beer (Chief Aerodynamicist). Today, Alpine confirms in a statement changes on that side and confirms the departure of these two individuals.
To compensate for their departure, Bruno Famin has chosen a three-pillar approach, explains the team. Three specialized technical roles have been created: Technical Director (Performance), Technical Director (Aerodynamics), and Technical Director (Engineering), replacing the previous structure of a single Technical Director.
Honest, the team explains that this restructuring is related to last year’s poor results and those of this start of the season: “This decision follows a period of disappointing results […] where the team dropped from fourth place in 2022 to sixth in 2023, failing to achieve several key objectives in its ambitions to move to the front of the grid.”
Joe Burnell becomes the new Technical Director of Engineering, David Wheater becomes Technical Director of Aerodynamics, and Ciaro Pilbeam becomes Technical Director of Performance. They will work together and will be directly supervised by Bruno Famin.
On the side of Viry-Chatillon, the engine factory, Eric Meignan is still the Technical Director of the Powertrain Group. Recently, during the presentation of the new single-seater, the team had announced the arrival of John Woods in Enstone and Audrey Vastroux in Viry-Chatillon as General Director of each factory.
« Matt Harman, and the Chief of Aerodynamics, Dirk de Beer, have chosen to leave the team to take on new challenges. The team thanks Matt and Dirk for their efforts within the team and wishes them the best in their future projects. » explains the press release.
Bruno Famin, Director of Alpine and placed directly under Luca De Meo, President of the Renault Group, detailed: « We have decided to make these organizational changes because we can clearly see that we are not where we want or need to be in terms of performance level, and it is time to take a new step in terms of organization and personnel.
Bruno Famin is optimistic that this structure will better correspond to Alpine’s specific scheme, with its two factories: « The new structure with three pillars and three Technical Directors, each specialized in different areas, will allow for better work and collaboration between our technical areas and will contribute to delivering top performance from the factories to the track.
I have full confidence in Joe, David, and Ciaron’s abilities to work closely together to bring the team the performance and improvements it needs. Finally, I would like to thank Matt and Dirk for their efforts over the past years within the team and wish them all the best in the next chapter of their careers.
