Haas team principal Guenther Steiner is confident that Otmar Szafnauer will move on from Alpine “pretty quick”, after the Romanian-American was sacked as their team principal.
Alpine sacked Szafnauer ahead of qualifying recently at the Belgian Grand Prix, as was now former sporting director Alan Permane.
The sacking of the pair came as a huge surprise, as was the way in which Alpine carried it out.
It was far from normal, with Szafnauer having been seen leaving Spa-Francorchamps moments before the race got underway.
Want to work in Formula 1? Browse the latest F1 job vacancies
He held the team principal role at Alpine for just over 18 months, with his firing reportedly being due to having differing views to Alpine’s bosses over the team’s targets going forwards.
Szafnauer and Permane were supposedly keen to build the team’s progress over time, like the axed boss did at Force India/Racing Point.
However, this isn’t what the team’s hierarchy want, with them looking to speed things up following the rapid rise of Aston Martin and McLaren.
Ex-Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto is the rumoured favourite to take the role.
Szafnauer is now set to take some time off before getting back into work, with him likely going to be snapped up somewhere given his proven leadership skills.
Steiner isn’t worried about the 58-year-old who knows how the job goes sometimes, although the Haas boss did admit that what Alpine have done and the manner of which they’ve done it “is not the normal way”.
“How it was done is not the normal way, but everybody does it their own way,” said Steiner, as reported by F1i.com. “I think obviously Otmar will be disappointed, but he has been there before.
“If you are in this job, I think most of us have been there before. One door closes, another one opens. In the end, in this job, it is just a difficult job.
READ: Management company terminates contract with driver for refusing to honour McLaren contract
“You are in the public eye, things can happen, and you just have to deal with that.
“I’m not saying that it’s nice to deal with it, but it’s part of it. I think Otmar will be over it pretty quick.
“As I said he has been there before, and these things they happen, it’s part of our life as a Team Principal.”