Szafnauer had been the long-serving F1 boss for the Silverstone-based Aston Martin squad, stretching back to its early Force India days.
It emerged last year that he was on the cusp of a move to Alpine, leading to questions about his future with Aston Martin. Szafnauer said at Interlagos in November he had “no intention of leaving” and he had a long-term contract in place, having called the media reports “speculative conjecture”.
But in January, Aston Martin confirmed that Szafnauer had left his position as CEO and team principal of the F1 team. His switch to Alpine was then announced in mid-February before the start of pre-season testing.
Asked by Autosport what had changed since claiming he had no intention of leaving Aston Martin, Szafnauer explained that “time moved on”.
“At that point, there was no intention of leaving,” Szafnauer said during F1’s second pre-season test in Bahrain this week.
“But as time moved on and things changed at Aston, I thought it…
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