Follow the chaos: Szafnauer responds to Alonso

Fernando Alonso took the floor on Thursday, before the Belgian F1 GPto talk at length about his departure Alpine to make it clear that he didn’t say goodbye szafnauer because he was not in his negotiations with Alpine but he notified the rest of the team before the announcement was made. otmar said his relation Ferdinand It was not broken, but he wanted to qualify the words of the Asturian and responded to Oviedo.

One of the points he wanted to clarify was Greece. After the announcement, szafnauer He told reporters he had not spoken to Alonso because he was on holiday on his yacht in Greece, but Alonso appeared to discredit his boss by posting an Instagram story showing he was in Oviedo.

“I told the truth. When I left Fernando on Sunday (from Hungary), He told me: ‘Look, don’t worry, we have time, I’m going on my boat to Greece, on holidays’. So that’s all I know. He invited me to coffee. He said if he was in Greece, to go to his ship for coffee. And I said that if I was there, I would look for him. And that is. I no longer kept track of where I was going on vacation. But sure enough on Sunday he told me he was going on his ship to Greece. Whether that happened or not, I don’t know.”

And according to him, Alonso did not inform him because of the lack of time between the time he notified Laurent Rossi (CEO of Alpine) and Luca de Meo (President) and the time of announcing his signing. This is his defense that Alonso did not inform him: “As far as I understand, the announcement is at 9:00 on Monday morning. I think around 8:30 or 8:45 he called Luca and also Laurent. And in just 15 minutes apart it is difficult to call three people. So yes, the announcement came before he had a chance to call me. But it certainly wasn’t Sunday night that we found out.”

Otmar said that he was surprised after Alonso’s signing, not because he didn’t know before, but because on Sunday night it seemed that Alonso would not sign for another team and, according to Otmar, the Asturian himself told him that he was in no hurry to sign.

“There was a rumor in the paddock on Sunday that it could happen (Alonso signing for Aston Martin), so it’s not a big surprise. What’s surprising is how far Fernando and I have come in our negotiations with him. And we’ve had good negotiations Inside, we’ve reached the final hurdle. And Fernando said he was ready to sign.”he pointed out.

“He appears to be negotiating with others as well. He’s a free agent, and he’s welcome to do that. But the only surprise was that the announcement on Monday morning after Sunday night indicated that there was no need to rush. So that’s the only surprising part.”he added.

CONTRADICTS ALONSO

Fernando Alonso said he did not inform Szafnauer because the Romanian-American was not part of the negotiations with the Spaniard. However, Otmar has a different opinion:

“The negotiations with Fernando started before I joined the team. We all know his contract is up. And he started to indicate that he wanted to stay in F1 and stay with the team. So those negotiations started without me. But towards the end, I got involved,” he said. That means, according to him, he did participate in the negotiations.

DENIED BAD RELATIONSHIP WITH ALONSO

“No, not at all,” Szafnauer said when asked if his relationship with Alonso had broken down. did you fail “No, not at all,” he replied when asked if Alonso let him down. “Like I said, he’s a free agent. There is no obligation on Fernando’s part to do anything other than what he has to do for himself.”

SZAFNAUER ACKNOWLEDGES HE CANNOT OFFER ALONSO YET

Another thing he clarified was about the contract offered to the man from Oviedo. Weeks ago he said that they proposed a renewal for one year plus another optional. And Alonso, certainly, is annoyed to see that Alpine wants to check him every year: “At Aston Martin they don’t check my passport,” he says, making sure that they welcome him with “open arms” and with more that confidence. . More importantly, Otmar said that Alpine did not do everything to keep Alonso.

“I always say that a deal has to be good for both parties. And if he finds a deal that’s better for him, he should do it. We did our best, as I said, we had negotiations with him in good faith. And we think we’re close to a deal that’s good for both sides. But he was a free agent and he was free to do what he did.”