Alpine F1 team ‘not for sale,’ says Briatore

Alpine executive adviser Flavio Briatore insists the team is not for sale and that he has no plans to cut jobs at its UK base.

The 74-year-old former Renault team boss, brought in to reverse Alpine’s declining fortunes, said: “Something is very clear. Nothing is for sale.

“[Renault chief executive officer] Luca de Meo doesn’t want to sell the team. Question finito [finished].”

Briatore, speaking at the Dutch Grand Prix in his first media briefing since joining Alpine in June, said his “realistic” ambition was for the team to “score some podiums in 2027”.

He also said that the team’s UK base in Enstone “didn’t need so many people”.

But when questioned as to whether that meant he was planning to cut jobs, he said: “I don’t want to cut jobs. We need efficiency. We need people very experienced. I don’t want to fire anybody.”

Briatore also insisted it was not his idea to close the Renault Formula 1 engine factory in Viry-Chatillon near Paris, a decision that is being considered by the Renault board and will be decided next month.

“I’m not the bad guy all the time,” Briatore said. “Everything else you can blame on me, but not this.”

Renault, Alpine’s parent company, is deciding whether to abandon its F1 engine programme, which started in 1977, and turn the team into a customer outfit that buys Mercedes engines from 2026.

Explaining why the option was being considered, Briatore said: “The problem is the evidence. But whatever our chairman decides is fine with me.”

His remarks are a reference to the fact that Renault has been lagging behind its power-unit manufacturer rivals since hybrid engines were introduced to F1 in 2014.

And he pointed to McLaren’s success this season as evidence that a team did not need to be affiliated with a works engine programme from a car manufacturer to be competitive.

On Friday, an email was sent to some media by an Alpine staff committee expressing its opposition to the plan to close Viry.

It insisted that the programme designing the engine for the new F1 rules being introduced in 2026 was well advanced and that results were “promising”.

It said that only 20% of the Alpine team’s current performance deficit to the front runners was caused by the engine and the rest by the chassis – designed at Enstone in the UK.

The email said the UK factory “struggles to solidify its structure amid successive changes in direction”.

That is a reference to the series of major management changes at Alpine in the last year or so, which has seen a chief executive officer and two team principals be removed, and a number of other senior figures either be sacked or leave.

Briatore admitted that the “problem of Alpine was no management – they chose a few wrong managers”.

Last month, Briton Oliver Oakes was appointed the new team principal and his predecessor Bruno Famin moved back to work in Viry.

Briatore said Oakes was “enthusiastic, young and ambitious – he has no experience [in F1] but he has the alent to be successful”.

Oakes was recruited after a series of interviews, Briatore said, which convinced him he was the right man for the job.

Oakes said he described Briatore’s impact on the team since his appointment as “the Flavio tornado”.

Oakes, for whom this is a first job in F1 after running the Hitech team in junior categories, said: “Enstone has been mismanaged for quite a few years. We have to get back to focusing on racing.”

Briatore said: “We need to clear up the house. You need the home clean to make sure everyone is working together. You need to motivate everyone.”