How one ambitious Frenchman is leading Alpine's new future

Recent weeks have seen some major changes at the top of the Alpine Formula 1 team, just a year after the last management reshuffle.

At the start of 2021 team principal Cyril Abiteboul was ousted, just as the former Renault outfit began its transition to its new identity. Renault Group CEO Luca de Meo named Laurent Rossi, his erstwhile director of strategy and business development, as Alpine’s new boss, in overall charge of both the F1 team and road car division.

Abiteboul’s number two Marcin Budkowski was promoted and MotoGP veteran Davide Brivio, well known to de Meo, was brought in as racing director. Officially neither man was team principal, although as his Linkedin profile points out, Budkowski actually held the FIA licence for the role.

Through last season Budkowski seemed to have grown into the job, although the word was that Brivio, as an outsider with no prior F1 experience, was struggling to make an impact on the Enstone staff.

Rumours that Aston Martin’s Otmar Szafnauer was in the frame for a management role at Alpine gathered pace, but nevertheless it came as a surprise when in early January it was announced that Budkowski was on his way out. Then shortly afterwards Autosport broke the news that top Alpine advisor Alain Prost was also gone.

The latter story emerged ahead of an agreed official announcement, and a furious Prost didn’t hold back.

“I wasn't involved in decision making any more,” he told L’Equipe. “Laurent Rossi wants to be alone, not to be annoyed by anyone. He actually told me himself that he no longer needed an advisor.”

So who is Laurent Rossi, and how did he end up in his current role? In fact, he’s one of the most academically qualified people ever to oversee an F1 team, and yet he comes from a humble background – which helps to explain the ambition and drive that has got him to where he is.

Fernando Alonso, Alpine/Renault RS18 Mule

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

He hails from the island of Corsica, where his father was a garage mechanic who prepared cars for and sometimes competed in the local WRC event. Rossi’s own passion for motorsport was further fired by family outings to the Monaco Grand Prix, but he was steered away from joining his dad’s business.

“When I was approaching the cars my father was telling me, ‘Don't touch that, you're going to hurt yourself with a wrench. Just go and use a pen,’” he recalls.

“Which was a not so subtle but very novel way of saying, just go and study, don't do like the old man. Otherwise, you're going to be stuck in working on cars like me...”

Indeed he studied hard, earning degrees in fluid mechanics and engine engineering. After an internship with Peugeot he landed a job with Renault in 2000, and he quickly moved up the ranks.

"When I was approaching the cars my father was telling me, ‘Don't touch that, you're going to hurt yourself with a wrench. Just go and use a pen" Laurent Rossi

“I was putting a lot of effort into understanding everything. Basically, there were five or six fields of expertise in the fine tuning department I started at, and I made a point of knowing each of them and very quickly. Then you become a promoted as a product manager because you can understand the problems and optimisations and overall approach to all those problems.”

However, he had wider ambitions.

“I loved what I was doing,” he recalls. “But I could see myself being a bit stuck or plateauing at Renault, because of my engineering background.

“So I asked if I could do something else. And people said, ‘Why don't you stick to pistons and that kind of stuff? Because that's your area of business. You don't know anything else.’ And I'm like, ‘Okay, I'll show you.’ And I did my MBA.”

Laurent Rossi, CEO, Alpine F1, in the Team Principals Press Conference

Photo by: FIA Pool

Gaining a Masters' in Business Administration degree is the traditional way of supercharging a career in management. Rossi didn’t do it by halves, quitting Renault and opting for a course at Harvard.

“The best way for you to completely step change your career is usually an MBA, not to specialise somewhere else. And since I was taking a big chance, because in France an MBA is not really like well known, I wanted to make sure that if I do get an MBA, then I get it from the most recognisable institution.

“So I bet that if I get it, I get it. If I don't, I’ll carry on doing what I was doing. I was fortunate enough to get accepted into Harvard.”

Going there represented a significant financial investment: “It was extremely expensive. I sold absolutely everything I had, my apartment, my car, my furniture. I kept my soul, but that's about it!

“That was a huge commitment. Basically I was, ‘I have to go all in.’ And it paid off, because I took a minimum amount of debt. And three years after the MBA I was debt free. Asset free, as well!”

On graduating in 2009 he joined management consultancy giant Boston Consulting Group.

“Initially, I didn't want to work in the automotive industry, because I was like, I'm doing this to distract myself from it, and to come back at some point. So I did a bit of banking, and healthcare. It was okay, I was a decent consultant, but not great.

“And one day one of the partners in Detroit asked me to work on a case for a client there, one of the big three [car manufacturers]. I loved it, and I performed very well. Because it turns out that being an automotive engineer in this world helped a great way. Also being passionate about the industry, not just the cars but the industry itself, helped a lot. I understood the macroeconomics of it pretty well.”

Esteban Ocon, Alpine A521

Photo by: Jerry Andre / Motorsport Images

Eventually his background saw him called upon to work secret automotive projects for all of the big three - Ford, General Motors and Chrysler. He was also involved in the future of emissions.

“It was important for BCG to be able to position themselves in the context of emission regulations ever tightening, if you will. So it was important for BCG back then to know what would that mean for the manufacturers, for the suppliers, for the economics.

“And so we looked into that, obviously, back then we were already capable of predicting the rise of electrics, the impact of batteries and what have you. So it was quite interesting, because it helped me get a very good grip on what was coming. And that only reinforced my, my desire to go back into the auto industry.”

Rossi left BCG in 2012 to join Google, where he worked on the company’s car project and deepened his knowledge of digital marketing and electrification.

“I could see, by the way that the society was transforming itself through digital, we eat digital, from breakfast, to dinner,” he says. “But we also have digital invading the car as well, and the ecosystem, because now cars are connected to you to one another, to the ecosystem. And that was that was quite eye opening.”

"Building the future of a company and beyond the company, like its impact on the ecosystem, on French economics, it was really, really fascinating" Laurent Rossi

Then in 2018 he got a call to return to Renault – and this time right at the top of the company.

"Initially Renault seemed like been there, done that, no thanks,” he says. “And then I understood it was to work for Carlos Ghosn on something quite game changing. So I accepted the challenge.

“And then this challenge turned very quickly into a promotion to strategy and partnerships, which allowed me to apply all my skill sets acquired for the past 20 years into this role, and culminated with Luca de Meo arriving and creating a brand new strategic plan. Which is a dream for a strategy director, because you only do that once or twice in a lifetime.

“Building the future of a company and beyond the company, like its impact on the ecosystem, on French economics, it was really, really fascinating. And then I was lucky enough to be offered this position here. I'm using everything I've learned in the past 20 years here.”

Oscar Piastri, Alpine A521

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Building up Alpine, and renaming the Enstone team, was a big part of that plan – and Rossi was handed the keys of the niche sportscar maker.

Traditionally F1 teams are wary of too much interference from manufacturer executives, but Rossi is an engineer by training who has developed management skills in many areas, and thus he is better qualified than most to identify what works and what doesn’t. What he didn’t have was inside knowledge of Grand Prix racing – that’s what he spent 2021 accumulating.

The bottom line is that the Enstone team hasn’t made as much progress as its owners had been expecting, and fifth place in 2021, some 120 points behind McLaren, wasn’t good enough. It was no secret that the team was handicapped by freezing its chassis and PU development early and being caught out by the postponement of the new regulations to 2022.

However, with the cost cap now reining in the front running teams, Alpine has to be in the mix in order to justify Renault’s ongoing investment. Backed by de Meo, Rossi is making further structural changes in an effort to move the team up the grid – and the results on track will be a clear indication of whether or not he’s got it right.

Esteban Ocon, Alpine F1, 1st position, and Laurent Rossi, CEO, Alpine F1, spray Champagne on the podium

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images