Alpine are in a moment of general crisis. Results and harmony within the team are lacking. There are doubts about the team’s ambitions despite the declarations of CEO Luca De Meo. In Spain, the French team will try to gain more points and climb the standings. However, midfield rivals VCARB (who are already comfortably faster) have more upgrades this weekend. In all of this, the team signed former Ferrari engineer David Sanchez. This certainly isn’t the biggest surprise signing at the team, with Alpine announcing the return of Flavio Briatore to F1.
2024 CAR, 2025 DRIVERS AND 2026 POWER UNIT: ALPINE HAS MANY DILEMMAS BETWEEN PRESENT AND FUTURE
Flavio Briatore is associated with the excellent successes achieved with Fernando Alonso and Renault as Team Principal. However, his career in F1 is also remembered for some controversies in the Benetton years and also in the Renault ones. The most important is what happened at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, after which the Italian manager was fired from the French team. He was also banned for life from F1 – though later acquitted by the Paris Court – after admitting that his team had deliberately ordered Nelson Piquet Jr to crash to bring the safety car onto the track so as to favour his teammate Fernando Alonso.
Since the arrival of Luca De Meo, expectations for the Formula 1 project have risen significantly in Alpine. However, so far, there has only been confusion and uncertainty. In recent years, we have seen numerous turnarounds with the farewells of Marcin Budkowski, Alan Permane, Otmar Szafnauer, Laurent Rossi and also high-level technical figures such as Matt Harman and Dirk De Beer.
Alpine has been a team in continuous revolution. The main element for success in F1 at the team level, namely stability, has always been missing. In addition, trust and ideas are also missing, and there is no way to get to the bottom of the problems that cyclically arise.
Also, penalising the French team is an engine that is not up to par, which was frozen and to which the teams did not offer the possibility of major interventions, confirming the gap also identified by the FIA but not considering it as large as declared by Renault itself.
Bruno Famin has been a Team Principal since mid-last year. He continues this role largely because Alpine have been rejected by other targets.
BRIATORE WILL BECOME LUCA DE MEO’S EXECUTIVE ADVISOR FOR THE F1 PART
Luca De Meo, the president and CEO of Renault, pushed for Briatore’s return to Alpine. Briatore will assume the role of Executive Advisor to De Meo and work alongside Bruno Famin for what will, in effect, be a consultative role. He will also act as a ‘hunter’, trying to revive the French team, even with decisions that could be very drastic.
The Italian manager will mainly focus on the team’s high-level areas. This will include scouting the best talents and conducting in-depth analyses of the driver market. Briatore will analyse the existing project and its infrastructure, providing advice on Alpine’s overall direciton.
Numerous rumours have been circulating for weeks about the future of Alpine. Suggestions they could leave F1 have been denied by the team. Alongside these reports, there are also whispers that Alpine could abandon the Renault engine in 2026. This, of course, would make them a customer team. At the end of the year, with Esteban Ocon leaving, Alpine must form a new driver lineup.
For this reason, Briatore’s role is more important than it might seem. He will try to direct a team that, for too long, has appeared confused and profoundly destabilized.
