Photo: Alpine
A second leadership reshuffle in little over 14 months at Alpine has led to Bruno Famin being put in charge of the Alpine Academy.
The programme, which supports junior single-seater drivers and karters on the way up to Formula 1 with the future objective of having them race for Alpine itself, has existed through various entitities that the team has taken on.
Mia Sharizman was head of the academy when the team rebranded from Lotus to Renault in 2016, and remained at the helm until April 2022 (by which point the team was known as Alpine) when he left the outfit entirely. In that time, only two of the team’s juniors had made it to F1 and both had done so with rivals.
Julian Rouse joined Alpine at around the same time that Sharizman left, and then took Sharizman’s position as Academy director. Pierre Sancinena also joined as Academy development manager.
Rouse was a race engineer and team manager at Fortec Motorsports through the 2000s, then joined Arden to become race engineer and then team manager for its newly created GP3 squad in 2010. At the end of 2011 he got moved into the sporting director position at Arden, then became general manager in 2015.
Alpine’s latest leadership restructure does not change Rouse’s job title, but as Academy director he now reports to Famin, with Sancinena remaining in position too.
Famin was at the helm of Peugeot Sport from 2012 to 2019, then he joined the FIA as its director of operations. In March 2021 he became the deputy secretary general for sport within motorsport’s global governing body, and spent a year in that role before leaving for Alpine’s racing division.
He was signed last March as executive director, and he will now move to being vice-president. That puts him below the company’s CEO Laurent Rossi, but above other senior figures such as Alpine’s F1 team principal Otmar Szafnauer.
“Bruno Famin will manage all teams ranging from F1 to Endurance, to customer racing and competition such as Rally-Raid,” announced Alpine.
“[He] will also lead the Alpine Academy, with the aim of detecting and developing drivers, thus serving as a feeder to all Alpine’s motorsports endeavors. Last but not least, Bruno Famin will continue to serve as managing director of Alpine Racing’s factory in Viry-Chatillon, supplying high-performance powertrains to all these categories.
“All current leaders of Alpine motorsport activities will thus report to Bruno Famin.”
Alpine currently has eight F1 juniors, and the academy’s talent identification and development mentor Alice Powell, a two-time Formula Renault 2.0 champion, also helps run the female and karting-focused ‘Rac(H)er’ side programme which supports six drivers.