With Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi embarking on ambitious plans to expand sales of the French sportscar manufacturer, he felt that the company’s motorsport activities needed to be given more attention than he could provide himself.
As a result, he has appointed Alpine’s F1 engine chief Bruno Famin as VP of Alpine Motorsports.
Famin will report directly to Rossi and will manage all of the company’s motorsport activities. This includes Formula 1, sportscar racing and its Rally-Raid ambitions, where Alpine is providing technical support to Dacia on its Dakar project. He will also lead the Alpine Academy, its young driver programme.
Although taking on the new responsibilities, Famin will continue to serve as the head of its F1 and motorsport engine division at Viry-Chatillon, where he has served as managing director since the start of the 2022 season.
The change in structure will mean that Alpine’s F1 team principal Otmar Szafnauer will report directly to him from now on.
Famin has been chosen because of his vast experience in motorsport, having originally begun his career at Peugeot.
Having worked on various projects, such as the famous 905, he was made technical director of Peugeot Sport in 2005 and was made director of the company in 2012 – helping the company achieve Le Mans success with the 908 as well as a Pikes Peak victory in 2013 with Sebastian Loeb.
He also helped lead the company to three Dakar Rally victories between 2016 and 2018, as well as the 2015 World Rallycross Championship.
After moving to the FIA in 2019, where he became director of operations, he was signed up by Alpine for 2022 to head its engine division, as part of a company reshuffle aimed at pushing forward with its F1 ambitions.
The change of role for Famin comes as Rossi has elected to create several hubs to oversee various elements of the Alpine company. He has already appointed Philippe Krief as VP, Engineering and Product Performance, and Antonino Labate as VP, Sales, Marketing & Customer Experience.
