Alpine team principal, Otmar Szafnauer has defended the team following public criticism of its "amateurishness" by CEO Laurent Rossi.

Reacting to a poor start to the season which has seen it drop to sixth in the standings, Rossi pointed to the opening race in Bahrain, and the subsequent nightmare in Melbourne, not to mention Baku.

"I did not like the first race, because there was a lot of – I'm sorry for saying this – amateurishness," he told Canal+ ahead of the Miami weekend, "which led to a result that wasn't right. It was mediocre, bad.

"And the last race in Baku was tremendously similar to the one in Bahrain," he added. "That is not acceptable."

"I'm noting not only an obvious lack of performance and rigour in the delivery, but also potentially a state of mind that is not up to this team's past standards," he continued."

However, at the end of a weekend that saw Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon add 6 points to the team's tall, Szafnauer played down Rossi's comments, insisting that he hadn't actually read them.

"Reading something like that on paper puts no more pressure on us," he said. "Everyone wants to do well here. We're very well experienced, with technicians and engineers at the highest level, and we put pressure on ourselves. So, we just have to fix it.

"We underperformed in Baku," he admitted. "The drivers ran into each other in Australia, and I think at the first race, we had a myriad of penalties, starting with Esteban being out of place. It hasn't been a smooth start to the season and maybe that's why he made the comments. But I have to read them.

"All we can do when we have issues like Baku is find and understand the root cause of why it happened, and make sure we either put the process or the people in place so that it doesn't happen again.

"We had an engine fire on one side, and we've got to make sure that doesn't happen again," he admitted. "And then we had some trouble on the other side. Once you understand how it happens, there's ways to mitigate that. That's what we'll do. We've done it already. It didn't happen here."

Asked why Rossi might have made the comments to the media, Szafnauer, said: "I have no idea, you'll have to ask him. I'll be asking him. This weekend was so busy that I haven't had a chance to discuss it."

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by trackrecords, 10/05/2023 21:00

"And in response to questions of his comments, Rossi gives a typical Gallic shrug... "

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2. Posted by meatball, 10/05/2023 16:39

"Rossi is the issue. Otmar seems like a great leader. For Rossi to let a talent like Alonso go over 1 extra year in his contract or by dragging their feet in the negotiations is completely unacceptable. It seems all too typically French. He wants to point the finger at the team, he needs to see their are 3 more fingers pointing back at him. Take some ownership of the problems."

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3. Posted by Mad Matt, 10/05/2023 13:07

"Isn't Laurent Rossi the same idiot who took legal action against Oscar Piastri to try and force him to honour a contract he hadn't even been offered?

I think he's going to need to reset his targets, F1 doesn't work like that. You can do a very good job and still not finish in the top 3 as the other teams aren't complete amateurs and aren't sitting still. "

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Szafnauer responds to Rossi criticism

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