It has been confirmed {that a} acquainted former F1 staff principal is again within the paddock.
Otmar Szafnauer has a brand new job in motorsport (Picture: Getty)
Otmar Szafnauer is again in motorsport after the American was confirmed as the brand new chief government officer and managing associate at Van Amersfoort Racing. The staff, which fields automobiles in Components 2 and Components 3, has moved to safe the companies of the 61-year-old who was out of labor after earlier spells main Components 1 groups.
Szafnauer has 20 years of expertise within the F1 paddock however rose to prominence in a management position at Pressure India, having joined in 2009 and remained for greater than a decade. He remained with the outfit when it was offered in 2019 to billionaire Lawrence Stroll, who rebranded the staff first to Racing Level and later to Aston Martin.
Having spent a while out with out immediately working with an F1 staff, Szafnauer is now again in command of one other outfit within the type of VAR. He mentioned: “Van Amersfoort Racing has a powerful status for growing expertise and competing at a excessive degree throughout a number of classes. I sit up for working carefully with the management staff and the broader organisation to information the following part of the staff’s improvement.”
VAR will hope that Szafnauer’s expertise and experience can assist push them nearer to the entrance of the grid F2 and F3. Within the former, the highest feeder sequence to F1, the Dutch outfit has managed solely two race wins throughout their 4 seasons so far, and a finest end of seventh within the groups’ championship.
They’ve fared barely higher at F3 degree, with six whole race wins to point out for his or her efforts and their finest end but within the championship final yr after they ended the season fifth within the standings. VAR have one alum on the present F1 grid: Alpine racer Franco Colapinto drove for the outfit in F3 again in 2022.
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Reflecting on his sudden exit from Alpine mid-race weekend in 2023, Szafnauer later mentioned: “They needed a company tradition change in a unique method, to eliminate some folks that have been doing a superb job that had been there for a very long time. My thought was, effectively, should you eliminate folks that do a superb job then the message you ship is, ‘Do a superb job, get fired’, and that is not the tradition that you just really need. I used to be requested, and I mentioned no. It isn’t who I’m.”
He additionally mentioned he had “completely nothing to do with not signing Oscar Piastri appropriately”, after the notorious incident which noticed him announce the Australian as an Alpine driver for the 2023 season just for the racer to disclaim it publicly and swap to McLaren. Szafnauer added: “That mistake was made in November [2021] – I began in March [2022]… I had no concept. They did not submit the CRB paperwork appropriately and by no means signed a contract with him.”
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