F1 News: Pierre Gasly Opens Up On Alpine Morale After Shocking Dismissals

Alpine F1 driver Pierre Gasly has finally made a revelation of the Alpine team's morale after the dismissals of multiple senior management personnel before the summer break. With concerns about a grim mood within the team after a shocking management reshuffle, the French driver has made a surprising revelation of things looking rather more positive than anticipated.

Major changes occurred within the team in the time period between the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend and the Belgian Grand Prix weekend. In such a short span of time, CEO Laurent Rossi was moved from his role, followed by the departure of Team Principal Otmar Szafnauer and Sporting Director Alan Permane. 

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In the case of Szafnauer, his departure was due to Renault's unrealistic expectations of climbing the grid while adapting to a shortcut method, as opposed to his realistic, but slow and steady growth plan. 

Vice President of Alpine Motorsport Bruno Famin was appointed as the new interim team principal while the search for Szafnauer's replacement is still on. However, the team hasn't allowed the off-track drama to affect their performance on the track.

Gasly took the third spot in the Belgian Sprint race. Fast forward to the Dutch Grand Prix that saw the 27-year-old claim his first Grand Prix podium with his new reshuffled team.

Despite such drastic and sudden management shifts being rare in Formula 1, Gasly said that the changes have not caused the team to lose morale. On the contrary, he revealed the picture to be quite positive. He told racingnews365: 

"It is out of my control, and coming back from the summer break, I really tried to assess the mood inside the team and try to understand from the mechanics' and the engineers' points of view as to how the change was received.

"To be fair, it's been positive and there have been promotions within the team, such as Rob Cherry from Chief Mechanic to Team Manager.

"There have been a couple of promotions and people have seen it as a good opportunity.

"I don't want to make any conclusions as it needs time, but I must say that the mood [within the team] is definitely up."

I guess it all depends on how one perceives changes. Fortunately, Gasly and the team have chosen to look on the bright side.