There’s a special place for the spray among the armoury of motivational tools.
Carefully calibrated it can energise the troops to lift to another level at a critical juncture.
Misdirected and it will be little more effective than a kick to the guts at a low moment.
Whether Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi’s evisceration of his own team at the weekend’s Miami Grand Prix falls into the former or latter category is up for debate.
Watch the Formula 1 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix 2023 live and ad-break free in racing on Kayo Sports on Sunday, 21 May at 11:00pm AEST. New to Kayo? Start your free trial now >
Five rounds into the season and Rossi is clearly fed up. If drivers aren’t fumbling qualifying performances, they’re crashing into the walls or they’re wiping each other out of races.
If the team isn’t making mistakes serving penalties, its cars are spontaneously combusting.
All Alpine has to show for five rounds of racing is a paltry 14 points and sixth in the constructors championship behind McLaren — and McLaren has been the outright slowest car at two races so far this year.
So given the microphone in Miami and a chance to vent his spleen in his native French, Rossi unleashed to broadcaster Canal+.
“We are in a position that is not at all worthy of the resources invested,” he said. “What I see is there’s certainly a lack of performance [and], as I say, a lack of rigour in the execution, but also potentially a frame of mind that is not at the level of what had been accomplished by this same team in the past.”
Rossi was particularly exercised by the poor showing in Azerbaijan a week earlier. The team had brought a major update to the car, but Gasly’s machine caught fire in practice and Ocon was withdrawn from the session as a precaution.
Gasly smashed his car in qualifying, while Ocon was only 12th fastest. They were then 13th and 19th in sprint qualifying.
Ocon was taken out of parc fermé to make set-up changes, forcing him to start both races from pit lane. Neither driver scored points.
Gasly catches fire in practice | 01:41
“I didn’t like the first grand prix (in Bahrain) because there was a lot of — I’m sorry to say this — dilettantism … that led to a result that was not the right one, that was mediocre, bad,” Rossi said, recalling the Sakhir race in which Gasly qualified last and Ocon retired after copping three penalties.
“Then the last race in Baku looked an awful lot like the one in Bahrain, and that is not acceptable.
“The right to make mistakes, it is a basic principle. Mistakes are what we learn from.
“However, when you make the same mistakes twice, it means you haven’t learned and that you aren’t taking responsibility. That is not acceptable.”
And then in a separate interview with the F1 website, a pointed warning.
“The trajectory is not good. We need to fix the mindset of the team ASAP,” he said.
“If not, it’s the rule of business — there’s going to be consequences.
“And I won’t wait until the end of the year.”
JUST HOW BAD ARE THINGS FOR ALPINE?
It’s important to remember that after pinching fourth in last year’s championship, Alpine gave itself the specific 2023 goal to be at least nipping at the heels of Mercedes this year before joining the frontrunners in 2024.
“We want to finish fourth again — the very minimum target assignment for all these guys, and I know they can do it — but this time in a more robust fashion,” Rossi said at the season launch. “We really need to get to that stage if we really want to aim at podiums permanently.”
Team principal Otmar Szafnauer said the only way to do that was to operate with a higher work rate than the leaders.
“For us to catch them, that means our development rate is higher, and that’s what we’re looking to do,” he said.
But the numbers so far make for mixed reading.
In 2022 Alpine was on average 101.42 per cent off pole position. That equates to 1.232 seconds over a normalised 90-second lap.
This season the car has improved slightly. After five rounds it’s 1.022 seconds off the pace.
But it’s the gap between Alpine and the back of the leading group — the year’s key objective — where the team is lacking.
Last year Alpine was 0.341 seconds behind Mercedes. This year that margin has grown to 0.352, a small but definite slip backwards.
Alpine gap to pole: +1.022 seconds (last year: +1.232 seconds; change: -0.210 seconds)
Alpine gap to Mercedes: +0.352 seconds (last year: +0.341 seconds; change: +0.011 seconds)
Throw in the team’s off-track difficulties in recent years — the high-profile walkouts of Daniel Ricciardo, Fernando Alonso and Oscar Piastri, for example — and there’s clearly a great sense of pressure at Enstone.
WHY IT MATTERS SO MUCH TO ROSSI
You might wonder whether Rossi’s acerbic reaction is a little overdone. After all, while the team has only just slipped backwards and we’re only five rounds into the season.
You could even argue that if we exclude the woeful weekend in Baku from the data, Alpine looks like it’s actually closed the gap to Mercedes to 0.25 seconds, which would represent a small improvement.
Isn’t it all a bit of an over-reaction?
If you’d made those arguments 12 months ago, you may well have had a point.
But the game has changed in 2023. The following two key data points prove it.
Aston Martin gap to pole: +0.564 seconds (last year: +2.439 seconds; change: -1.875 seconds)
Aston Martin gap to Mercedes: -0.106 seconds (last year: +1.548 seconds, change: -1.654 seconds)
Relative to pole, Aston Martin has improved at something like an 892 per cent greater rate than Alpine year on year. It’s not only bridged the gap to the leading group, it’s also already ahead of Mercedes on single-lap pace and ahead of Ferrari in the races.
Aston Martin has shattered the understanding of what can be gained in a single off-season and left the likes of Alpine with nowhere to hide.
“Aston have less engineers than us, as far as I know,” Rossi told the F1 website. “They don’t have their own wind tunnel yet, they don’t have their [new factory] running at the moment.
“They hyper-charged development by having the right people joining them.
“It shows that it’s down to creativity and efficiency. It’s the rule of the game, we know that.”
WHERE IS THE SPRAY DIRECTED?
In his longer interview with the F1 website, Rossi made a more nuanced but no less devastating argument as to where his team was falling short and what needed to be improved.
“One of the things that needs to change … is mindset,” he said. “This year there is a lot of excuses, which lead to poor performance and a lack of operational excellence.
“I need to tackle this; I need the right people to tackle this. I need the team to be aware they need to do that, as it’s not up to me — it’s up to them, they have to do it. It’s their responsibility.
“I hope they make the same diagnosis. I will make it clear to them that this is the diagnosis and they need to fix that.”
He also left no doubt as to whom the blame would be sheeted home if things didn’t improve.
“[Otmar Szafnauer] is responsible for the performance of the team — that’s his job,” he said. “There is no hiding here.
“Otmar was brought in to steer the team through the season and the next seasons towards the objectives that we have … and therefore this is his mission, to turn this team around and bring it to the performance that we want.
“Yes, it is Otmar and the rest of his team, as Otmar alone doesn’t do everything, but the buck stops with Otmar. It’s Otmar’s responsibility, yes.”
Szafnauer was Rossi’s key signing after taking the top job, poaching the respected manager from Aston Martin, where he’d spent the last 13 years turning it from a basket case backmarker into a highly efficient midfield force.
He arrived with a strong reputation. But reputations don’t last forever.
“Trust is something that increases with good results and erodes with bad results,” Rossi said. “Everyone starts with a capital of trust and then you manage it. There are only so many setbacks you can take in a sport, in a competition world, because basically it shows.
“Everyone can tell whether or not you’re going in the right direction. It directly impacts your capital of trust.
“I would say Otmar is very capable, but he has a big task on his hands.”
LL Cool J’s F1 intro falls flat | 02:37
‘THERE’S GOING TO BE CONSEQUENCES’
The summary of Rossi’s spray is that his team has become lazy and is resting on its laurels after snatching fourth last season.
But he isn’t without faith in the personnel he has. A largely unchanged staff finished fourth last season off the back of a strong stream of car updates and the same level of resource.
That’s why he’s retaining the target of fourth in the championship this season — despite the position already being 64 points up the road, almost five times Alpine’s current score.
“It’s too early to [charge target] — and I don’t want to give people the comfort,” he said. “I don’t enter a competition and reset my objective because it’s easier.
“The team managed to get fourth. They have the means to get fourth, more so than others. I want them to be fourth.”
It’s also a bold challenge considering the gap that still exists between the leading group and Alpine’s position in the midfield. But Aston Martin has changed the rules, and Rossi evidently wants his team playing by them.
“If they don’t, it’s going to be a failure,” he said.
“If they fail by giving 500 per cent best and turning this ship around, there will be extenuating circumstances and it bodes well for the future.
“If not, it’s the rule of business — there’s going to be consequences.
“And I won’t wait until the end of the year.”
The spray has been issued. The key players are on notice. The threat has been made.
Will Rossi’s intervention lift his troops or land as a kick in the guts after a difficult start to the season?
