How life plays: two years ago Alan Permane had still unsightly experiences in Belgium. At that time, the sports director of Alpine was removed from Team boss Otmar Szafnauer in the course of the throwing out, but now he is returning for the first time as the head of a Formula 1 team.
Permane is the new strong man at the head of the Racing Bulls. He takes over the office of Laurent Mekies, who as the successor to Christian Horner’s shot to Red Bull. “It was definitely a trip,” he says. “Two years ago, this was a very sad day for me. But I am the Red Bull family for everything she did for me.”
The 58-year-old found a new home at the Racing Bulls after working for Benetton/Renault/Lotus/Alpine in Enstone for 34 years.
And he has been commanding in Faenza for two weeks. How it was so far? “Very busy that definitely – but also exciting,” he says. “I am incredibly proud to get this opportunity to lead the team, and I’m very much looking forward to it.”
Permane is now one of many current team bosses with one past in Enstone. In addition to him, Sauber’s Jonathan Wheatley, Haas’ Ayao Komatsu and Ferraris Frederic Vasseur were also busy with the former Renault team. In addition, Alpine, Steve Nielsen, will soon be the new Managing Director – half of all team bosses.
“At that time it was just a good environment,” says Permane, who hired Benetton in 1989 and stayed in the team until his outdoor in 2023. However, he does not see a connection: “Jonathan has been with Red Bull for a long time, he grew up there. Steve was eight or nine years no longer in the team business. So you can’t just attribute everything to Enstone.”
Many team bosses thanks to Briatores influence?
“We definitely did not agree and said: ‘Let’s get all the team bosses’,’,” laughs Haas-Boss Ayao Komatsu on this fact. “It’s pure coincidence – but I think it’s nice.”
But: Not everyone was employed in Enstone at the same time. “Jonathan left shortly before I started, I think he went to Red Bull in 2006, and I came to Enstone exactly that year,” recalls Komatsu, who stayed with the team until 2015 before moving to Haas. “So I never worked directly with Jonathan, but of course I knew him for a long time.”
“Steve was my sports director, Alan was first racing engineer, later chief racing engineer – I worked closely with both of them and learned a lot,” said the Japanese. “It was really a good environment, a real racing team. I very much appreciated the time there. And I think it’s nice that some of the people from back then take leading roles in other teams.”
But how is it that suddenly so many people from Enstone are at the top of Formula 1 teams? Had Flavio Briatore, who still has his fingers in the game today, maybe an impact on people and their ways?
“I don’t know,” laughs Komatsu. “So, you probably can’t deny it. But in my position – I was a tire engineer, performance engineer, then racing engineer – I didn’t have to do directly with Flavio.”
“But of course he had an impact on people like Steve, Jonathan and Alan. And they in turn influenced me – at least Steve and Alan. So maybe indirectly,” he says. “But to be honest: it was a good school. I enjoyed it.”
Komatsu: Permane with a very good understanding of racing
After ten years of work, the Haas team boss is convinced that Permane will do his new role in the Racing Bulls: “He really has a good sense of racing. He is not like a typical engineer,” he says.
“He used to be an electrician, so he didn’t come from the classic area of racing engineers. But he was constantly on the track – back then in Enstone -, first as an electrician, then, I think, at some point as a system engineer, if I am not mistaken. In any case, he worked up, and it is clear that he has a very good understanding of racing,” said Komatsu.
“He may not be the academic figure, but he realizes that a number makes no sense. Many people nowadays, just well -trained university graduates are good with numbers, but they do not notice if something makes no sense. Alan is someone who recognizes immediately if something looks rough or wrong. He has a good sense. This is my experience with him.”
Of course, Permane himself has already worked among several team bosses. Does he take something from them or does he prefer to go his own way? “My current plan is: nothing changes at first,” he reveals. “We are on the right track, everything works very well. We have built a strong car, we are running into the race with good energy – and we want to keep that.”
Mekies: Racing Bulls in the best hands
So he continues the path that Laurent Mekies paved as his predecessor. At Red Bull, he now faces an incredibly difficult task to continue Christian Horner’s legacy and finds it “a bit strange to leave the ship”, as he says to F1TV.
It was definitely not easy for him to leave his previous team, “because that was an incredible adventure. We were on a great way with the whole team. In the past year and a half, we had mastered so many changes that it really felt like it was going to start and get even better.”
“But on the other hand, the team is in the best hands,” says Mekies about his successor. “Alan is simply the perfect line-up for the role of the team leader. He knows the team inside and by heart, and he embodies exactly the spirit that we have built together there.”
He is convinced that Permane and sports director Peter Bayer will continue to proceed. “The team will continue to come forward – with exactly the spirit that we all love so much,” he says.
“And ultimately you don’t want to see this as a separation. Because basically we still work for Red Bull. Both teams belong to the Red Bull family, and we will continue to see each other often.”