As part of the Formula 1 managerial merry-go-round that kicked into high gear over the past winter, there were major changes at Alfa Romeo Sauber.
Popular team principal Fred Vasseur departed for Ferrari – hardly a slight on the team he was leaving – and in his place came Andreas Seidl. Sort of.
Seidl took on the position of chief executive officer of Sauber Motorsport, assuming one of the roles Vasseur had held, but leaving the position of team principal free. And that wasn’t directly filled, as Alessandro Alunni Bravi became team representative.
To suggest it’s simply a communications or optics-based role would be grossly unfair, but given the fact Alfa Romeo hasn’t set the world alight so far this season, there has been little call for Alunni Bravi to spend much time in the limelight.
In fact, he’s rarely enjoyed such a position, despite a career history that involves running teams at the level just below Formula 1 over the past 20 years.
“The sport is my life, not just a passion,” Alunni Bravi tells RACER. “I’ve been really lucky to be born in a small village in Umbria in the center of Italy – Passignano sul Trasimeno – that was the headquarters of Coloni that was in Formula 3, Formula 3000 and Formula 1. And close to a circuit between Perugia and Magione (Autodromo dell’Umbria).
“So when I was a child, and a teenager, I’ve been spending all my life around this. It’s always been motorsport at the center of my dreams, of my life. What I try (to do) is to combine my passion with my work as a lawyer, and I had the chance to start quite early at the end of the 1990s as a lawyer for a team, for drivers, working for driver management company.
“I could combine this with consultancy activity as a legal counsel to management activities for teams or for promoters. Plus, I have been working for the World Rally Championship as a general manager of the Italian round in Sardinia, and also with the sporting department of Fiat Auto Group.
“Then I had my own GP2 team with partners, working with Nicholas Todt. So, a lot of different activities until the day that I joined Sauber together with Fred Vasseur in 2017. Now of course, I’m focused on the F1 team and our Sauber Group. So it has been another evolution. This doesn’t mean that I’m fit for this role, it means that I’m old! But I can of course use my experience for my current job.”
Alunni Bravi is certainly doing himself a disservice, with the huge amount of motorsport experience being packed into a relatively short space of time and leaving him heading up Alfa Romeo at the age of 48. And although Seidl’s hiring comes with the air of him being the de facto team principal, his Italian counterpart says that’s not how Sauber is now organized.
“I know that people always say that now to be a team principal, or in my position, you need to have an engineering background,” he says. “I think that this is depending on the structure of each team. There are team principals that are previous engineers, because the team required this kind of profile in that particular structure.
“Other than that, there are those with more of a management profile like Toto Wolff or Christian Horner. So it’s really dependent on how you structure the group and the team activities.”
As a proud Italian, Alunni Bravi says he will not be sad when the Alfa Romeo collaboration ends after the current season ahead of the transition to become the Audi works team, because it has been a successful partnership from both sides. But it is very much a time of change at Hinwil, and one that the team representative has a key hand in.
“First of all, we work together hand in hand on a daily basis,” he says. “So someone can think that there is Andreas working on the future and me taking care of the present and this interim period of the team, but it is not like this. We work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to improve the team to deliver results now for our partners in the next years, but also to put the right foundation for what will be a bigger challenge to be a works team as of 2026.
“But we build our future here and now. So it’s a process that we do all together with our management, with our people. It’s not one single individual, but it’s a work that we perform together. And of course, we have the appointment of James Key. This I think is a statement for Sauber Motorsport for what we want for the future.
“We want to increase the quality in our group. We want to develop each single area. And I think that James will be instrumental in shaping – together with us and Andreas – the technical department, which is one of the core departments of an F1 team.”
That shaping is something that Alunni Bravi says is an exciting prospect because the imminent arrival of Audi is “a challenge that should be really attractive to everybody”. But that’s offset by a team that has slipped to ninth in the constructors’ championship behind Williams and Haas this season, having pipped Aston Martin to sixth last year.
It’s a tough spell that isn’t being ignored, but much like James Vowles’ mantra at Williams, the majority of decisions being taken at this point in time are with the future in mind, and without the pressure of a hard deadline for success.
“We prepare the future now,” Alunni Bravi says. “So we need to deliver strong results for us, for our partners, in the next two years, and this is why we are addressing all our weaknesses, and we are working hard to improve each area. James Key is one example of our vision for this, but we are appointing people in every department – it’s just we are not disclosing it.
“This is a process. How much time will it take? We have seen in the past with the likes of Red Bull or Mercedes, it is not easy to arrive and to win. You need time. You need time to find the right people, you need the time to develop your infrastructure.
“You will need time, because in Formula 1 there is a big inertia, and when you take a decision, sometimes you need to wait because the people are subject to gardening leave… (but) you need to create your organization and to make it work. So what is important is that we are taken the right decisions for the future.
“I don’t think is correct to speak about the date or time. We are in 2023. We finished P6 last year in the constructors’ championship, which has been the best result for Sauber in the last 10 years. But the road is long. Of course, we need to work on a daily basis to be ready to be more competitive in 2026. But this will be the start of the project.
“Don’t forget that this will be the first year with Audi in Formula 1, as a works team, as a full manufacturer. So we cannot set the target, but this will be the first year we need to have the structure ready to face the challenges. And then we will see.
“If we have done a good job then we’ll be competitive, if not we’ll just know that we need to improve and we have hard work ahead of us. So it is not really correct now to set that target of when we need to score podiums or fight for wins.”
But will it be Alunni Bravi who gets much of the credit if the Audi transition is a success for Sauber? Or criticism if not? He doesn’t mind either way, but he wants to make clear that his role means he does shoulder the responsibility.
“The reward is not to be more popular or to have my face recognized around the paddock, I think that the reward is the respect of your people,” he says. “I don’t feel a big difference between working behind the scenes or now, I just hope that I represent the team in the correct way.
“Maybe for my friends, now they have the opportunity to see me more on TV, and not only three four times a year when I get the chance to go back home to stay with my friends! But for me the reward is to do a proper job on a daily basis for the team.
“And then I hope that also people understand through myself how much commitment and effort we are putting into this project. How much as a team we are working hard to develop ourselves. You can do the right choice, we can do bad choices, but I’m a person that never was afraid to take a decision. For me, it’s important that we take decisions.
“In Formula 1, you need to take responsibility for what you do. This is the most important part of my job.”