{"id":842626,"date":"2026-08-04T00:32:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T00:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/842626\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T00:32:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T00:32:12","slug":"otmar-szafnauer-im-too-old-to-work-with-human-beings-who-arent-decent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/842626\/","title":{"rendered":"Otmar Szafnauer: ‘I’m too old to work with human beings who aren’t decent’"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the first part of an exclusive interview with Motorsport Week, Van Amersfoort Racing\u2019s CEO Otmar Szafnauer reveals why he moved from the world of Formula 1 to the feeder series.<\/p>\n

Szafnauer is no stranger to the world of four wheels. His motorsport career began in 1986 when he joined the Ford Motor Company as a programmes manager. Alongside his role, he trained in the Jim Russell Racing Driver school and competed in Formula Ford in 1991.<\/p>\n

However, in 1991, he moved to F1 as an Operations Director at British American Racing. He worked with Honda and Force India, which became Racing Point and then Aston Martin, before leaving to join Alpine in 2022.<\/p>\n

His stint with Alpine was short: he joined in February 2022 as Team Principal before departing in 2023, shortly after the Belgian Grand Prix<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After leaving F1, Szafnauer took three years out of the sport entirely before becoming Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner of Van Amersfoort Racing, a team that competes in Formula 2<\/a>, Formula 3, FRECA, and Formula 4.<\/p>\n

Szafnauer revealed what was the attractive factors in taking on the role on the lower rungs of the motorsport ladder.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat drew me to VAR is the friendship with the owner [Rafael Villag\u00f3mez],\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019s a decent human being, and I\u2019m too old to start working with human beings who aren\u2019t decent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo my choice was to stop racing and go do something else or race with somebody I liked, and I really liked my partner at VAR, who\u2019s a great guy, and I thought, \u2018you know what, I don\u2019t know why everything I\u2019ve learned over the last four years of racing is to try to help VAR\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"UnderUnder Szafnauer\u2019s direction, Van Amersfoort is becoming a frequent presence on the front end of a pack of cars<\/p>\n

The constant in motorsport<\/p>\n

Despite working in different roles for different teams over the years, Szafnauer recognised that much remains the same. No matter the organisation.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery team is filled with humans, and if you can get all of them working together to the highest level and pulling together, you\u2019ll be successful.\u00a0That\u2019s a constant.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, moving from the large, development-focused organisations in F1 to the smaller, performance-focused teams in the feeder series, Szafnauer noted some key differences.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe significant difference between F1 and F2 and F3 is that in F1, most of the humans on the team are focused on car development, 90-some per cent of them,\u201d he said. \u201cWhereas 90-some per cent of them in F2 and F3 are just focused on racing because you buy the cars.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo there are differences; however, to perform at a high level, there is that constant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since joining the team, Van Amersfoort Racing are on track for its best season so far in F3, and strong results are beginning to bleed through into F2. <\/p>\n

\"OtmarOtmar Szafnauer has been a constant presence in paddocks for years, including his stints as F1 Team Principal for a number of teams<\/p>\n

Despite holding a higher managerial role within VAR, Szafnauer remains very hands-on with the team\u2019s operations. He explained how, for him, the philosophy is \u2018strategic and directional\u2019 rather than the usual focus on operational running. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy leadership philosophy is less operational and more strategic and directional.\u00a0So just point the team in the right direction and let them go in that direction.\u00a0So a bit more strategic and less operational.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven less operational than when I was at a Formula 1 team, sitting on the pit wall, going to every debrief, understanding the minutiae of the race team, trying to understand how we go about car development, what\u2019s lacking, what we need.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI am now more, like I said, strategic in my operation.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE \u2013 Is the Colton Herta-Cadillac F1 gamble starting to unravel?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the first part of an exclusive interview with Motorsport Week, Van Amersfoort Racing\u2019s CEO Otmar Szafnauer reveals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":842627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85,373684,97506],"class_list":["post-842626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports","tag-szafnauer","tag-var"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=842626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/842627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}