“I was quite surprised”: Sergio Perez feels former boss Otmar Szafnauer 'lacked time' to fulfill his potential at Alpine F1

Sergio Perez believes that Otmar Szafnauer did not get enough time to prove his potential at the Alpine F1 team.

At the post-race press conference after the 2023 Belgium GP, the Mexican driver claimed he was surprised at the dismissal of his former team boss from the French team at short notice.

Asked by Sportskeeda how he felt about the departure of Szafnauer from Alpine, Perez replied:

“Yeah, I think I was quite surprised with it, given how short notice it was. I think Otmar is great, any person in that position, you’ve got to give them time. And I think Otmar lacked time to really show his potential, which I know is huge because I've seen what he's done in other teams with very limited budgets and with not-so-limited budgets as well."

"So I think that it's a shame that they let him move on but yeah, I think on the other hand, whoever comes needs to have proper time because all these things in Formula 1 take a massive time,” Perez added.

Acquainted with Otmar Szafnauer since his tenure at Force India, Sergio Perez was surprised by his departure from Alpine. The Romanian-American engineer was a chief operating officer (COO) at Force India and later became the team principal of Racing Point in 2019.

The Mexican drove for the Silverstone outfit while it was Force India from 2014 to 2018 and as Racing Point from 2019 to 2020. Perez felt that Szafnauer had immense potential and was a crucial part of making a team work on shoestring budgets.

Surprised by the dismissal, Perez felt that the former Racing Point team principal was not given enough of time to function and make a difference.

Szafnauer was instrumental in putting the team into administration while it transited owners from Vijay Mallya to Lawrence Stroll. After Racing Point was rebadged Aston Martin, the 58-year-old retained the team principal’s role until the end of the 2021 season.

Szafnauer joined Alpine in 2022 and had a ‘100 races’ plan to transform the French outfit. However, with management changes in recent months and a lack of results, the team announced his sudden departure along with technical director Alan Permane. Sergio Perez was also surprised at the short notice period that was given to his former Force India colleague.

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Sergio Perez believes that the 2023 Belgian GP was a clean weekend after a long time

Satisfied with podium finishes in the two races prior to summer break, Sergio Perez felt he has been able to regain his form.

The Mexican driver believes a race in clean air in Belgium was better than the previous races where he had to constantly surge through the pack. He felt the race in clean air at the Spa Francorchamps circuit made him learn more about managing tires than the previous races which were a struggle.

Asked to point out the most satisfying aspect of the second-place finish, Perez replied:

“I think just getting that form back. We were on the podium last weekend and now, and I think, having these sorts of races in clean air, is where you learn a lot and you make those steps in the coming races because my last few races have been a bit of… yeah, very hard to get a proper read on them, because the way you have to race with dirty air, and so on, so that to me I think is where we’re going to be learning the most on that stint on free air and the second stint as well.”

With a few dull races since Monaco, Sergio Perez lost a lot of championship points to both Max Verstappen and drivers behind him like Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton.

Despite a dominant car, Perez was unable to unleash its true potential or put up a proper fight with his teammate. Consecutively finishing on the podium for the last two races, the Mexican has been able to pull out a gap of 40 and 41 points on Alonso and Hamilton, respectively.

However, with 10 more rounds left on the calendar, the fight for second place in the championship is expected to be tight.