Throughout the monumental changes happening at Alpine, including the departure of Laurent Rossi as the team’s CEO, Renault’s CEO, Luca de Meo, gave an inspiring and motivational speech recently at the team’s headquarters in Enstone, UK.
The team sits on an island in 6th place in the Constructors’ Championship, and with 5 races left, have no chance of making up the 129 points to beat McLaren into 5th, and Williams in 7th have no chance of catching up to them. However, through all the changes this year off the track, and the tumultuous season on the track, Pierre Gasly says that de Meo’s speech motivated him, and inspired the entire team.
Otmar Szafnauer and Alan Permane left the team after the Belgian GP as they disagreed with the upper management on future plans and goals.
Photo credit: BWT Alpine F1 Team
“I was at the simulator on that day,” Gasly said when asked about the event. “And no, I think it was definitely very inspiring, keep to push the team forward and pushing for change and improvement.
“So no, I think it was very positive. And yeah, it was great to be there, all united as a team.”
Esteban Ocon echoed his teammate’s comments, and he said that de Meo is aware about the improvements that his team has to make and that he is prepared for the overhaul to get to that goal.
“Yeah, I was having performance meetings on that day and obviously, yes, I attended the speech of Luca and Luca came to reaffirm and motivate everyone inside the factory.
“It was good that obviously he visited us. He replied to a lot of questions as well from everyone.
“And, yes, of course, there’s things that we need to improve and we are on the way to be doing that and I’m sure that we are going to be able to achieve it in the future.”
