While Alpine has expanded since parent company Renault took over the operations at Enstone again in 2016, the squad is still not at maximum staffing capacity.and Red Bull to fast track its progress, showed exactly what was possible.
As Alpine evaluates what it needs to do to lift its own potential, the team is now on the lookout for senior aerodynamicists. “You want to shortcut the process,” said Szafnauer about hiring from top teams. “Red Bull has an aerodynamic team of 50 people, it's not one. But the guy who sits on top of the 50, he gets all the ideas. So, when you displace him, his brain is full of all those learnings.
“But then once you've got that, you still need that team of 50 underneath to continue the development, because you only shortcut it one spot at a time. “So, what I said about Red Bull probably having 50 people. We're at 38, we want to grow to 45. So, we have spots for seven or eight senior aerodynamicists here. We have those spots.”While Renault remains fully committed to funding the F1 squad, there have been rumours in recent weeks that fresh investment could come from outside parties.