Another F1 figure connected with the Ecclestone era has gone

One other hyperlink between Method 1’s previous and current has been severed – for now. Alessandro Alunni Bravi may not be a family title for followers however the announcement that he’s to go away Sauber places much more distance between F1’s company current and its previous as Bernie Ecclestone’s private fiefdom.

Alunni Bravi certified and labored as a lawyer whereas moonlighting as a journalist for Italian publications Vroom and Autosprint, initially at weekends earlier than touchdown a full-time gig protecting F1 for Autosprint within the early 2000s. However arguably the making of him was a request to take care of some authorized niceties surrounding the organisation of a European F3000 race within the Sicilian coastal city of Cagliari in 2002.

Euro F3000, just like the GP2 collection which supplanted it, was an enterprise run by and for Ecclestone pals, and the request got here from the Cagliari occasion’s patron, Pasquale Lattuneddu, a proud Sicilian and Bernie’s paddock ‘enforcer’.

For a minister with out particular portfolio in F1, Lattuneddu wielded extraordinary energy and was handled with the deference sometimes reserved for Mafia dons. On his say-so paddock passes may very well be granted or pulled. In the event you have been a crew supervisor and he decreed that one among your vehicles was parked out of actual alignment with the remaining, somebody must abandon no matter different urgent process they may have and finesse it into its appropriate place.

Although it finally proved to be short-lived, the F3000 race round Cagliari’s Stadio Sant’Elia was a ardour mission for Lattuneddu. Choose F1 media have been flown out all-expenses-paid to publicise it.

Alunni Bravi was rewarded for his work by receiving a wider function within the following yr’s occasion, which included a ‘Sardinia F3 Masters’ race gained by the up-and-coming Robert Kubica. Within the fullness of time Alunni Bravi would change into his supervisor.

Lattuneddu’s patronage opened doorways elsewhere within the wider Ecclestone friends-and-family community. After a spell operating Trident Racing in GP2, Alunni Bravi obtained a suggestion from one other supremely well-connected determine, Nicolas Todt, co-founder of ART Grand Prix and proprietor of All Highway Administration, whose portfolio included the likes of Felipe Massa, Jules Bianchi and Charles Leclerc. The relationships Alunni Bravi made right here led to his transfer to Sauber in 2017 through former ART co-owner Fred Vasseur, who was leaving Renault’s F1 crew after a brief however sad spell.

It is understood that, after the torturous political absurdities of Renault, Vasseur wished an ally at a senior stage – and made Alunni Bravi’s set up on the Sauber board a situation of accepting the crew principal function. Vasseur’s transfer to Ferrari six years later led to an evolution for Alunni Bravi, into the unwieldy job title ‘managing director and crew consultant’, since incoming CEO Andreas Seidl didn’t need to be the entrance man.

Having spent so a few years quietly and fortunately working behind the scenes, having to seem in televised press conferences in crew package represented one thing of a tradition shock. It’s no shock that Alunni Bravi’s most popular mode as ‘crew consultant’ was a choose gathering of media over espresso and pastries, encounters no much less convivial for being invitation-only.

It is now eight years since Liberty Media booted Bernie upstairs right into a ‘chairman emeritus’ function. A US company beholden to shareholders and compliance might ailing afford a handshake-deal service provider rattling round on deck. Shortly afterwards, phrase circulated that Pasquale wouldn’t be returning to his duties within the 2017 season. An period had handed.

And now one other outdated ‘face’ has clocked out. However, given Alunni Bravi’s relative youth (50), for a way lengthy?