Alfa Romeo and their New Team Representative

Written by Nina Rogerson

Image via Formula1.com

The F1 grid for 2023 is now fully complete with all drivers and Team Principals. However, Alfa Romeo have announced that Sauber Group Managing Director Alessandro Alunni Bravi will take on the role of ‘Team Representative’ for their 2023 campaign.

At the start of 2023, Sauber announced the signing of ex-McLaren Team Principal Andreas Seidl as CEO, but the Swiss outfit had chosen to split the role previously held by Frederic Vasseur and was still looking for an F1 team boss.

On the 26th of January it was announced that the current managing director of the Sauber Group, Alessandro Alunni Bravi, would be taking on the role of ‘Team Representative’ for the Alfa Romeo 2023 campaign. Although he holds a different title, it seems that Alunni Bravi’s new position will be comparable to the role of a Team Principal during race weekends.

Sauber says that Alunni Bravi will represent the team “in all official functions at race weekends and away from the track” as well as “work together with the technical and operational departments to continue the team’s growth and success”.

The appointment of Alunni Bravi as Team Representative essentially means that as Sauber CEO, Seidl will be able to focus on the bigger responsibilities within Sauber and can delegate a lot of the F1 team business towards Alunni Bravi.

Since the announcement of Alfa Romeo’s Team Representative, fans have been sharing their views on twitter:

Judging by the reaction to the news, it seems that fans are not completely certain on the meaning of ‘Team Representative’ or don’t quite believe it means anything different to what we know as Team Principal. It is interesting that Sauber decided to appoint a Team Representative as opposed to a Team Principal and it seems to suggest that this may be related to the morphing of Sauber and Audi as a works operation in 2026.

It will also be interesting to see how Alfa Romeo functions as a team throughout the 2023 season and how this management change will affect them. Despite not actually being the Team Principal figure, we are hoping that we will still see Andreas Seidl as a strong presence within the team like we saw with him at McLaren.

Fans of Alfa Romeo will be hoping that these management changes will help boost their team further up in the championship and potentially even secure podiums for both of their drivers: Valterri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu.