By Niharika Ghorpade

Copyright sportskeeda

Alan Permane felt honored to be promoted to the role of team principal at Racing Bulls after spending the majority of his career in technical positions. Speaking exclusively to Sportskeeda in Azerbaijan, the British veteran reflected upon the differences between his previous roles, the teams he has worked with, and his new responsibilities.Permane spent almost three decades with the Renault F1 team before joining Racing Bulls in 2024 as Racing Director. During his tenure with the French manufacturer, he rose to become technical director and one of the most senior technical figures in the paddock. After being released by Alpine midway through the 2023 season, he was announced as Racing Director of Red Bull’s junior outfit in January 2024. Following Christian Horner’s departure from Red Bull in July 2025 and Laurent Mekies’ promotion to the senior team, Permane stepped up to take charge as team principal.Having worked in technical and trackside roles for most of his career, Permane admitted that the move into a team principal position was a different challenge. He said that he felt honored by the promotion and expressed gratitude to Helmut Marko and Red Bull GmbH CEO Oliver Mintzlaff for their faith in him. However, he acknowledged that it was a significant step up from his previous roles. While he once led smaller, more focused groups, he now has to manage the entire organization. Permane believed that overseeing the team at large marked a substantial shift in scope and responsibility compared to his earlier positions.When asked by Sportskeeda how his new role with the Racing Bulls team had treated him, Permane replied:“Firstly, it’s an honor. I was incredibly, I felt huge pride to be offered this role. It’s not something I’d expected or ever really can say dreamt about. I’ve always been a track guy. The last 18 months I’ve been here as a racing director, so really managing the technical side of things at the track.”Before that in Alpine I was sporting director for a while, and before that chief race engineer, so again on the technical side of things. So, I’ve never really been in that. Of course, I’ve managed people and that side of things, and large track side projects, but this is of course a step up on that.”When asked what it was like for technical directors to move into the roles of team principals, which has been a trend across the grid in recent times, Permane explained:“Yeah, there are huge changes. You go from managing a group of 50-60 people to a group of 700-800 people. So it’s a big step up. I’m very lucky in the support I’ve been given here. I’ve got an extremely strong senior management team, and I have to thank Laurent [Mekies] and Peter [Bayer] for that, for putting that in place.”And of course even before them, Franz [Tost], for building this team. And I’m also thankful of course to Red Bull headquarters, to Helmut [Marko], to Oliver Mintzlaff for entrusting me with this. Yes, it is a big step, but I feel I’ve got the best chance of doing it as possible.”Alan Permane explains the difference between working at Alpine and Racing BullsAlan Permane reckoned that his role as Racing Director at Racing Bulls was more demanding than the one he held at Alpine. His three-decade-long tenure at the Enstone outfit saw the team undergo several transformations, from Benetton to Lotus, Renault, and eventually Alpine. Permane recalled that when he first joined, the team comprised just 80 employees, a number that had grown to nearly 1,000 by the time he departed. Having developed alongside the team, he admitted that it was difficult and emotional to leave. By contrast, his move to Racing Bulls placed him in a very different environment, where the role was more technically focused compared to the sporting responsibilities he had carried at Alpine.Permane told Sportskeeda about how he transitioned to his role at Racing Bulls after having worked with Alpine for 30 years. He said:“No, when I came here I was doing a very different role to what I was doing at Alpine. I loved my time at Alpine, I was very happy there, and I guess the reason I stayed there is because I was so happy there. And I think the longer you stay somewhere, the team becomes your team as well. When I started there, there were 80 people.”When I left there were 1,000 people, so I’d grown up a lot with the team as well. So I was very sad to leave there, but I was extremely happy to join Racing Bulls. The differences in my role at the time were quite large. At Alpine I was in a sporting role, in Racing Bulls I was a racing director when I started, so in a much more technical role, so it was very difficult to compare the two.”Alan Permane began his Formula 1 career in 1989 as a test electronics engineer with the Benetton team. He later served as Chief Operating Officer at Renault during Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years before moving into the role of Sporting Director at Lotus, where he worked with drivers such as Romain Grosjean and Kimi Raikkonen. When Renault returned as a factory team in the V6 hybrid era, Permane continued in the sporting role, overseeing talents including Carlos Sainz, Nico Hulkenberg, Daniel Ricciardo, Esteban Ocon, and Alonso once again.Permane’s three-decade association with the Enstone outfit came to an abrupt end in July 2023, when he was dismissed, along with then-team principal Otmar Szafnauer, amid internal turmoil. Since joining Racing Bulls, Permane has played a key role in restructuring the team. Within weeks of stepping up as team principal this year, he oversaw Isack Hadjar’s breakthrough podium, the team’s first of the season under his leadership.