New Racing Bulls Boss Alan Permanent “Soap the challenge”

The surprise eviction of Christian Horner after 20 years at the Red Bull bar also had a training effect within the Red Bull family. With Laurent Mekies appointed replacement for Horner, Red Bull’s management turned to the Racing Bulls racing director and Vétéran of the Alan Paddock Alan to fulfill the role of team director, supervising the staff of the Anglo-Italian team through Milton Keynes in the United Kingdom and Faenza in Italy.

From his appearance Benetton to Renault, Lotus and Alpine, permanent was a faithful of Team Enstone as an engineer and sports director, before leaving the team exactly two years ago. He was then broken by racing bulls in January 2024 as a new race director, adding his three decades experience to a team commanded by Red Bull to forge his own identity and compete for the midfielder.

Having been involved in the series since 1989, permanent, 58 years old, saw everything, but becoming a team director was not on his horizon and took it by surprise.

“I have had many reactions to the news, a shock, a pride,” said Motorsport.com in an exclusive interview. “It is incredible that they feel that I am capable and that I have the potential to lead this team. I deeply thank the senior direction of Red Bull in Austria, Oliver Mintzlaff and Helmut Marko, and, of course, Laurent to have recommended me, pushing me forward, his belief in me too. It was a great week.”

“The target is to be at the top of the midfielder, and we are certainly in a battle for this and we will continue this fight throughout this year.”

Permanently only had two weeks to spend his feet under his new office before heading to the Belgian Grand Prix of this weekend, but he believes that the solid structure that Mekies and the CEO of the Peter Bayer team have set up, which allowed the team to become a more competitive midfielder, means that he does not need to reinvent the wheel.

“Well, the action plan is to keep things as they are,” he said. “Laurent and Peter have done fantastic work with this team in the past 18 months, which has led to an increase in competitiveness. And my plan is to continue to work, keep the team on the same trajectory as this one.

“It’s a big team and I know that the Senior Red Bull guys are extremely satisfied with how the team takes place. They are very satisfied with our competitiveness. The target is to be at the top of the midfielder, and we are certainly in a battle for this and we will continue this fight throughout this year.

“For my part, it will certainly mean a little more trips. I am mainly based in Milton Keynes. In my previous role as director of the race, I spent a little time in Italy, but it will undoubtedly mean that I will divide my time between the two sites. Probably a little more on the side of Faenza, where this team is located.”

A serious challenge to come

Liam Lawson, Racing Bulls team

Photo of: Sam Bloxham / Lat Images via Getty Images

Permanent believes that his vast experience as a sports director gave him a solid background to place himself in the higher position, although he does not underestimate the challenge of going from a track team to sit at the top of the two factories housing more than 700 employees.

“I think the sports director gives you decent land,” he said. “This is a much more important role, of course. As a sports director, you manage a group of 60 or 70 people. You are sitting on FIA committees. You work with the FIA, with commissioners, with penalties and protests and things like that. So, you have a very good land and a basis for taking this work, but it is of course a much more important role.

“There will be a lot of things that are new, but I am very ready to take it and I am convinced that I will do a good job.”

The racing bulls will not appoint a direct replacement for the role of race director at the moment. Instead, the chief engineer of the Mattia Spini race will take on additional tasks. “For the moment, we will not fill it. We will not change things immediately,” said permanent.

“Mattia will intervene, and he is an excellent chief racing engineer, and he is impatient to do more, and he certainly has the ability to do more. Inevitably, I will be a little more in this side of the company than Laurent was not, certainly at the beginning.

Paddock support

In response to the news, Sauber chief Jonathan Wheatley published a photo of him and permanent toast with a glass of champagne in the Benetton garage while they were celebrating their success in 1995 with Michael Schumacher. Permanent and Wheatley have become close friends during their stay in the team, and in a serendipity stroke, they will now compete as two of the 11 F1 team directors.

“We grew up together,” said permanent. “We both worked on Michael’s car. At that time, I was an electronic engineer, Jonathan was the number two mechanic. And that’s where our friendship started. We worked together for many years, Benetton, then Renault, then of course, he went to Red Bull and now to Audi.

When he was asked if he had team boss ambitions like Wheatley, who left Red Bull to take Sauber’s concert, he replied: “Honestly, no. I was much more technical or a sports guy.

“But now it happened, I’m savoring it. It’s going to be a big challenge for me and I can’t wait to be there.”