In the dominoes that followed Christian Horner’s departure from Red Bull and the promotion of Laurent Mekies in his place, was confirmation that Alan Permane will become team principal at Racing Bulls.
The Englishman is a stalwart of the F1 paddock, once a career man at Alpine, who has worked his way up the ranks to now head Red Bull’s second team.
Why has Racing Bulls named Alan Permane as team principal?
A veteran of motorsport, Alan Permane has been named team principal of Racing Bulls following Laurent Mekies’ move to Red Bull in place of Christian Horner as CEO.
His promotion comes just 18 months after he joined the Faenza-based operation as racing director following a three-decade career at Enstone.
Permane’s F1 career began with Benetton, joining the test team as an electronics engineer in 1989, as the squad fielded Alessandro Nannini and Emanuele Pirro – the former taking victory in controversial circumstances at the Japanese Grand Prix.
It was the first of many successes Permane would be part of with the operation, which boasted Rory Byrne and Ross Brawn (who joined in 1991 following a spell with Jaguar in sports car racing).
He remained with the squad as Michael Schumacher arrived, and won the world championship in 1994 and 1995.
As the German left for Ferrari the following year, Permane moved into a race engineer role, holding a similar position through until 2006 at which point he was promoted to chief race engineer for the 2007 campaign.
He remained with the squad through its myriad of identity changes, from Benetton to Renault, Lotus, back to Renault, and ultimately Alpine.
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Permane’s own role evolved too, rising to chief operating officer in 2011 and sporting director for 2012, holding that position until his departure following the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix.
It was an ignominious end to a career at the team in which he netted world championships with Schumacher and Fernando Alonso (2005 and 2006), born out of a misalignment between what he believed the team needed to return to winning ways, and what Laurent Rossi believed it needed.
After sitting out the remainder of the 2023 season, Permane returned to the F1 paddock for F1 2024 with Racing Bulls, taking on the sporting director role in support of Peter Bayer as CEO and Laurent Mekies as team principal.
With the latter having since been moved on to Red Bull’s senior F1 operation to become its new CEO following Horner’s sacking, Permane has been promoted once more.
The 58-year-old takes charge of a team that sits sixth in the Constructors’ Championship at the halfway point of the F1 2025 season.
Read next: Why has Christian Horner been sacked by Red Bull?
