With the team facing a challenging first stage of the season, picking up just eight points and finishing sixth in the constructors’ championship, Rossi has not been impressed with what he thinks the team has done.

say to french channel canal+ Ahead of qualifying for the Miami Grand Prix, Rossi criticized performances so far this year, with Pierre Gasly finishing a season-best fifth.

“It’s disappointing, it’s actually bad,” he said. “The year ended with a flawed performance and a flawed delivery. It was clear that our place in the table wasn’t worth the resources we spent and we were nowhere near our ultimate goal for the year – very far in fact .

“I noticed not only a distinct lack of performance and rigor in the delivery, but the underlying mentality was not up to the standards this team has been used to.”

Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi

Photography: Erik Junius

Alpine’s toughest grand prix of the year took place in Baku last weekend as it missed points following a series of problems in practice, qualifying and the race.

But Rossi said another low point came in the season opener in Bahrain, overshadowed by Esteban Ocon’s triple penalty for starting off the grid, with the team bumping into the pits. Then speeding in the pit lane.

Rossi added: “I didn’t like the first grand prix because there was a lot of – I’m sorry to say this – amateurism, which led to incorrect results. It was mediocre, bad.

“The last game in Baku was very similar to the one in Bahrain. It’s unacceptable.”

Rossi said that while making mistakes is part of F1, what he said was not allowed was repeating mistakes.

“You can make mistakes — it’s a fundamental principle that you can learn from your mistakes,” he said. “But you do (need to) learn and when you make the same mistake twice it means you haven’t learned your lesson, you haven’t taken responsibility.

“This is unacceptable.”