Source: Imago Images Sports /IMAGO/Sven Severing
[Saba Sports News] In a recent episode of the “High Performance” podcast, former Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer shared an experience from his time at Force India. Szafnauer stated that during his tenure, Force India’s financial situation was dire, and he even paid employees’ salaries out of his own pocket twice. Before F1 introduced budget caps, there was a significant budget disparity between wealthy teams and those with fewer resources. At that time, Force India had only 400 employees with a budget of £90 million; other teams had budgets as high as £250 million. In terms of R&D, Force India had only £4 million compared to other teams’ £60 million or £70 million R&D budgets. Therefore, to save costs as much as possible, Force India would shop at Costco for more affordable office supplies. Szafnauer also revealed that during his time at Alpine, he became the scapegoat for the team’s failure to retain Australian driver Oscar Piastri. At that time, Szafnauer had only started his role in March; he did not sign the controversial contract and was unaware of it, but the team submitted incorrect documents to the F1 Contract Recognition Board. The situation indicated that some people within the team were untrustworthy and wanted to set him up.