The restructuring at Alpine continues as the team has announced new roles for Pat Fry and Matt Harman.

Pat Fry is no stranger to Formula One fans after his long spells at Benetton, McLaren (winning multiple championships in his time at Woking) and Ferrari. He also spent time at Manor Racing.

The 57-year-old Brit joined the Enstone-based team in the role of Chassis Technical Director in February 2020, and has now been promoted to the position of Chief Technical Officer.

“Pat Fry will oversee all technical activities in Enstone, and will be responsible for setting the performance target of the car, defining the technical capabilities and competencies needed and identify future technologies and disruptors,” Alpine said on their website.

“He will ultimately arbitrate on major performance trade-offs and risks, and set the long term development strategy to maximise performance within the constraints of the cost cap.”

As well as Fry’s promotion, Matt Harman will now become the team’s Technical Director.

Harman had spent 18 years at Mercedes before joining Renault/Alpine in 2018, where he was an engineering team leader initially.

He then held the role of Head of Powertrain Integration and Transmission design from 2011 until his departure from Mercedes seven years later, where he had a lot of success before his exit. 

“Matt Harman, previously Engineering Director, will now take responsibility for delivering performance and experiments to the track, structuring the technical organisation and processes, plus growing talents and teams,” Alpine said.

“He will oversee chassis technical direction and bring to the team his unique experience in chassis/power unit technical integration and trade-offs.”

“Matt’s background as PU engineer will help strengthen the link to the engine department at Viry and further optimise PU integration. Matt was recruited from Mercedes in 2018, where he spent 18 years, covering a wide range of chassis projects.”

Laurent Rossi, CEO of Alpine, said: “We are considerably strengthening Alpine F1 Team by having Pat and Matt at the helm of Engineering in Enstone. Pat is one of the most experienced engineers in Formula 1, while Matt’s drive and expertise will prove critical in extracting the full potential of our race cars, thanks in particular to his unique expertise combining chassis and engine development.”