Aston Martin team boss Otmar Szafnauer may change teams

Senior management seems to be having a silly season as current team boss Otmar Szafnauer may be on the verge of leaving the Aston Martin Formula 1 team.

Rumors over the past few days suggested that 57-year-old Szafnauer, the current team boss who also held leading roles in Formula 1 teams Racing Point and Force India, could be replaced by new Aston Martin recruit Martin Whitmarsh.

With Martin Whitmarsh on Aston Martin’s payroll, it is believed that there is no place for current team boss Otmar Szafnauer.

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Whitmarsh, the longtime top McLaren official, is only part of a large influx of employees under Lawrence Stroll’s possession of the Silverstone-based team.

“When Stroll bought the team, he brought a new movement with him,” the former Formula 1 driver Ralf Schumacher from the European media company Sport1 is quoted as saying. “But I have already said that you cannot turn a cow into a tiger overnight. There is simply too much unrest. And in my opinion the duo of Martin Whitmarsh and Otmar Szafnauer would not work at all.”

Sebastian Vettel has attracted attention for not having been able to shine overly green since leaving Ferrari last year, but Schumacher says the situation is not the German’s fault.

“Aston Martin needed a top-class driver and Sebastian is now the better and more consistent of them,” said Schumacher, referring to Vettel’s team-mate Lance Stroll. “The team just isn’t doing what it’s supposed to. New people have been hired and the resulting unrest may no longer be the right environment for Szafnauer.”

Szafnauer, who according to sources already had a strained relationship with Lawrence Stroll, is believed to be taken over by Alpine, whose Davide Brivio is on the cusp of returning to MotoGP.

“I look at everything from top to bottom and from right to left,” said Laurent Rossi, CEO of Renault. “We are currently among the ‘best of the rest’ but to really catch up with the best we may need a different structure,” he admitted.

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