Veteran former Ferrari Formula 1 race engineer Dave Greenwood is to officially take up a fulltime role as Alpine’s racing director in January.
Greenwood has latterly been working for Hitech as the right hand man of boss Oliver Oakes, and he has been overseeing the F2 operation since Oakes moved into the Alpine team principal job.
Greenwood attended the recent US GP with Alpine, and in Abu Dhabi this weekend he is starting the transition into his new job, although Oakes has confirmed that he officially starts next month. He will leave his Hitech F2 job to focus solely on the F1 operation.
The new role sees him sit below Oakes and alongside executive technical director David Sanchez in the management structure.
In addition to his links with Oakes Greenwood is also the latest of a number of former Enstone staff members to have returned to the team since Flavio Briatore became involved as executive consultant.
“He’s been with me a long time,” Oakes told to AutoRacer.it. “He’s got a lot of F1 experience, he’s obviously returning to Enstone, and he’s been a right hand of mine for a few years.”
Defining Greenwood’s job description as racing director he added: “I think every team has a different remit. In his case, he’s in a leadership position with myself and David there.
“He’ll bring a lot of experience, as the title says across all the racing team, but also across technical and engineering as well. It’s a broad role, and it’s good to have him by my side.”
Greenwood is best known for his spell at Ferrari where he worked as Kimi Raikkonen’s race engineer, but he brings experience from several teams to the Alpine camp.
He started his F1 career as a vehicle dynamicist with BAR Honda in 2000. He joined Renault at the start of 2005 as a race and performance engineer, and was with the team through its two World Championship seasons with Fernando Alonso.
He joined the start-up Virgin/Manor team in 2010, staying with the new operation under the Marussia name until late 2014, when he joined Ferrari. He remained at Maranello until early 2018.
Greenwood then had a spell in sportscar racing, initially as technical director with Manor Endurance, before he took up a similar role with Zak Brown’s United Autosports operation.
He joined Hitech in early 2022 and was one of the key players in building up a fledgling team as Oakes tried to gain an F1 entry. When the bid was rejected the F1 operation was closed down.
