Over the winter, Scuderia AlphaTauri announced Marco Perrone would move from his role as Head of Strategy to take on a new role of Head of Sporting Direction, and he is thankful for the opportunities the team have given him since leaving university.
Speaking at the release of AlphaTauri’s 2022 challenger, the AT03, Perrone, who has been with the team for fourteen years, says his new role is ‘very important’ and it is a ‘great opportunity’ for him.
“The short answer is because I love this team – that’s the main reason,” said Perrone. “It has given me great possibilities. I started here straight from university in 2008, working as a mechanical engineer in R&D.
“After that, the team gave me a lot of opportunities year after year. It’s a great challenge to be able to help the team in what is a complicated set of tasks, it’s an important part of this game and also, within these tough tasks, I would say that there are a lot of opportunities to show how good we can be in several areas, such as car preparation and pit stops for example.
“Also, part of the team’s image stems from our preparation and discipline. Therefore, I think it’s a very important role and that’s why I thought that it was a great opportunity to take on.”
Perrone says the team has always worked well on the pit wall, and despite his changed role, he does not see that changing. He also sees benefits of having the experience of being Head of Strategy going into his new role.
“On the pit wall we have always worked as a team and we had shared conversations across the people present,” he said. “Therefore, I think that I will still be in the loop relating to strategy activities.
“Having a strategy background is useful partly in terms of understanding the Sporting Regulations, and also in being able to see how the situation is evolving and passing this information into the garage. So, I see it as an advantage to have a strategy background with this role.
“Obviously, I have a lot of things to learn on the garage side, but that’s part of the game and I’m comfortable with it.”
Perrone says he already had a good idea of the Sporting Regulations within Formula 1, but his new role has made him more aware of the finer details about them. He also believes time will be needed to understand what has changed ahead of the new season.
“The devil is in the detail,” added Perrone. “A lot of details that I did not have to take very much into account in my previous role are now of paramount importance, so I would say that my previous job helped me to have a fairly good introduction to the Sporting Regulations, but then there are a lot of other points that need an extra look.
“I think we need some time to clearly understand the effect of the new Sporting and Technical Regulations, and adapt our workload accordingly. I believe that we will start the season working in the same way as we were last year and then we’ll see where we are.
“So the team will still arrive at the track at the same time as in 2021, but we definitely need to have a look at what we can do in terms of how long we spend at the track.
“The Sporting Directors from all the teams are still discussing the format details, but a new set of Sporting Regulations should be released soon with all these changes.”
