Why 'football manager' approach to F1 team principals won't boost Alpine's form

OPINION: Alpine has undergone yet more management upheaval, with Otmar Szafnauer given his marching orders during the Belgian GP weekend. It appears like a Formula 1 team in total disarray and its rotating door of team bosses is not furthering Alpine's cause. Perhaps the parent company needs to change total tact in its F1 approach

Let's play a game. Eric Boullier, Gerard Lopez, Frederic Vasseur, Cyril Abiteboul, Javi Gracia, Marcin Budkowski, Otmar Szafnauer, and Bruno Famin: which of those individuals hasn't assumed the team principal role at a certain Enstone-based Formula 1 team in the previous 10 years?

Yes, it's Javi Gracia, who was the Watford Football Club manager between January 2018 and September 2019 - and one of the longer-serving ones at that. There's some significance to his inclusion, rather than purely sliding a generic name into an extensive list of ex- and current team principals.

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Author Jake Boxall-Legge

Jake Boxall-Legge Autosport’s Technical Editor. Having studied Automotive Engineering with Motorsport at the University of Hertfordshire, West Country-born Jake's original ambition was to design racing cars. During a year between studies in which he accidentally rekindled a love of writing, he took up a Master's in Motorsport Engineering at Oxford Brookes. Halfway through his master's year, he was offered a place on the Autosport Academy, conducting occasional freelance duties before becoming the press officer for Formula 2 and GP3 in 2018. Autosport offered him a return to the fold later that year to serve as its Technical Editor. His voice appears on a number of videos and podcasts, and can often be found writing about terrible Formula 1 cars in excruciating detail. In his spare time, Jake enjoys baking and blames his failure to make it past the Great British Bake-Off interviews on his tenuous grasp on choux pastry. His dream is to open a brunch cafe - and his willingness to make outrageous puns in inappropriate situations has earned him the contempt of his colleagues.