Alpine boss, Otmar Szafnauer has dismissed claims of a personal vendetta with McLaren and Aston Martin, insisting "I want to beat them all".

In Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Lady Bracknell famously declares: “To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness."

The same might be said of Alpine, which over the course of last summer Fernando Alonso to Aston Martin and Oscar Piastri to McLaren.

In both cases, the handling of the situation which led to Alpine losing two great drivers, was blamed on poor management and communication.

Zak Brown, in particular, appeared to take delight in taunting Alpine boss, Otmar Szafnauer, who at the beginning of the year parted ways with Aston Martin and was subsequently announced as Alpine's team principal just in time for the launch of the A522.

Though some have said that the American might bear a grudge towards the two teams, Szafnauer insists there is nothing personal, he wants to beat everyone.

"I want to beat them all," he told reporters at last night's launch. "What I want to do is focus on the things that we can control. What we control is the development of our car, both powertrain as well as aerodynamic development.

"Let's do the best job we can and see what happens," he continued. "But I don't think we focus on beating one or two teams. We've got to try to beat all of them."

Asked about Alonso's comment on Monday, when the Spaniard hit out at his former team - not something we thought we'd ever write - in claiming that Aston Martin isn't "comfortable" settling for fourth in the standings, Szafnauer replied: "I think when we did finish fourth, if you look back, he was as happy as everybody else who was part of the team.

"When the year before you're fifth and your ambition is to move up to fourth, it's not easy to do," he continued. "We had to beat McLaren. I've been to Woking and you walk by and they have a massive trophy cabinet, so they're not easy to beat. So I think you have to celebrate those successes when you say, look, I want to be top four, I want to be fourth not fifth. I don't think it's shameful to say 'we've done it and let's celebrate'.

"For us, next year, if we can get much closer to third than we were this year, I'll celebrate that too," he insisted. "If we're closer and the gap isn't that big, that means we're making progress to where we want to go.

"This year, we have a more competitive car and the teams at both factories in Viry and Enstone have worked well to improve the overall reliability; something which did let us down at times last season.

"We continue to grow our workforce and I see a real spark of team spirit here and a high level of motivation from everyone to push this team forwards. Time will tell on where we stand in the championship order."

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by kenji, 18/02/2023 1:26

"The 'Szaf' is carrying a lot of angst. Will be interesting to see what happens when McLaren and Alpine get themselves into a tangle as I'd wager a few $$$ that the message to the drivers is give no quarter...whatever and the first one who does will become a candidate for divesture."

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2. Posted by Defiant, 17/02/2023 20:29

"hahahahaha, I should hope he does want to beat those teams... pretty sure that's what Alpine are paying him for"

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It's nothing personal, insists Szafnauer

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