When Renault decided to rename its Formula 1 division with Alpine in 2021, the diamond manufacturer’s sports line could not find a better hook than Fernando Alonso, who, after two years away from the Great Circus, returned to the competition with the team that provided him with the car with which he won the two world titles that appear in his record, in 2005 and 2006. However, the perfect story ended like a bad Sunday dinner movie, and the Asturian He fled to Aston Martin, after realizing how bad the prospects were. The Spaniard’s intuition did not deceive him if we take into account the catastrophic drift into which Alpine found itself, stuck in a centrifuge that, at this rate, will end up self-destructing it, with managers defenestrated every now and then and drivers obsessed with finding some other garage that welcomes them. In fact, this week it became official that Esteban Ocon, who forms an explosive couple with Pierre Gasly, will not continue defending the colors of the French team next year. This outcome comes after the accident that the two colleagues had two weeks ago, in Monaco, and for which Ocon took responsibility. In fact, this Friday, in Montreal, the boy from Normandy was replaced in the first free practice by Jack Doohan, Mick’s son, five-time 500cc world champion.
Aside from its role as an engine supplier, Renault has maintained a strategy that is difficult to interpret when it comes to managing its F1 structure. His career combines stellar moments, such as Alonso’s two crowns; with period triggers, like the Crash Gate, from Singapore (2008), or the two slams of the door on the championship as a team; the first in 1985, and the second 25 years later, when the French giant sold 75% of its shares to Genii Capital, a Luxembourg investment company. In 2016 he regained control and, six years later, renamed it Alpine in a basically marketing maneuver, promoted by Luca de Meo, the CEO of the manufacturer.
Since that moment, the Enstone (Great Britain) troop has lived on a roller coaster. From celebrating Ocon’s triumph in Budapest (2021), where he received the invaluable help of Alonso, to seeing the Ocon escape. His departure was followed by other layoffs, in response to the free fall in which the group settled, which went from the fourth place it occupied in 2022, in the statistics reserved for manufacturers, to the sixth, in 2023. Philipppe Krief He was appointed CEO of Alpine, replacing Laurent Rossi, while Bruno Famin inherited the vacancy left by Otmar Szafnauer, as director of the team. “Alpine has an ego problem. There is a lot of internal politics and bosses stab each other in the back. Things will not end well,” predicts, in statements to EL PAÍS, an executive who until recently had an office in the company.
The 200 million euros that a group of Hollywood investors, led by actor Ryan Reynolds, injected just one year ago to acquire 24% of the team seem to have been of little use. At the gates of the ninth stop on the calendar, Alpine appears in the penultimate place in the statistics, with only two points accumulated, one from Ocon (Miami) and another from Gasly (Monaco). Several A524 design managers left their positions with the championship underway – the technical director and the aerodynamics director – in response to having designed a car that was obviously overweight. Famin trusts that the arrival of David Sánchez, a few months after joining McLaren from Ferrari, will give Alpine the necessary boost to get out of the hole it has found itself in, a true horror movie for Reynolds and company.
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