Briatore’s blueprint to replicate Alpine’s past F1 title success

It turns out that Formula One Management is not alone in planning on producing a new movie. If Flavio Briatore gets his way, then Alpine is also working on a blockbuster hit that would tell the story of it winning the 2027 Formula 1 world championship.

Briatore is back with big ambitions for the Alpine team, and dreaming big of fighting for titles again.

The 74-year-old may look like a slimmed-down and slighter frailer version than in his pomp during the Benetton days in the 1990s, but his appetite for success remains just as big.

It has been eight months since the controversial Italian tycoon returned to managing an F1 team with Alpine, coming back during the Spanish Grand Prix weekend while Alpine shelved plans to use Renault’s F1 engine operation.

There are some figures in the paddock who insist he should never have been allowed back for his instrumental part in the crashgate saga, where Nelson Piquet Jr was allegedly urged to crash out of the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix to dictate the outcome of the race, which was won by the Renault team’s other driver, Fernando Alonso.

Briatore, whose ban from F1 was overturned in 2010, has since worked closely with F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali but his current role involves him reporting to Renault CEO Luca de Meo.

Sat in his room deep in the back of Alpine’s hospitality unit, he answers questions from Autosport laying out his vision for the future and how his return to F1 came about.

“This team, talking about Alpine,” he says, “it’s the same team. It’s a Benetton team, a Renault team, an Alpine. You change the [colour of the] shirts, you change a little bit of the performance, but it is the same team.

“After 15 years out of Formula 1, I followed some races watching on TV. So, one day I called Luca. I told him I felt so sorry to see the team in this condition, because it was my team. I created this team. I built the factory and their world championships were won in this building.

“I wanted to do something. And we started talking on the phone. One day we met in Paris, I was busy with my restaurant business – I had 1200 employees and then 600, because I sold 50% of the business and I had a little more time.

“I just told Luca, let me see if it’s possible. If I still have the same book I had before, to put together this team. And we started talking but there was one condition, I wanted to be in charge completely.”

Briatore may well be in change, but he is being ably assisted by Oliver Oakes as team principal. The shift in morale is noticeable since the duo replaced Bruno Famin midway through last season.

“You need to be fair and be transparent with your people,” Briatore continues. “And this is the process we started. Bruno did a super job to assure David Sanchez before he arrived at Alpine but I needed a team principal because we need somebody on the ground.

“The best possibility for us was Olly. He’s young. He’s ambitious. He knows the business. He’s a team-mate. He’s nice with the people. And he lives 20 minutes from the factory.

“When you’re building a house, you need someone for the foundations. It made no sense to put on a fucking roof and after that everything collapsed.

Oliver Oakes, Team Principal, Alpine F1 Team

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

“That was the foundation, and after that, little by little, we built. We hired more people, and the team started having more credibility.

“It’s a project. We found new sponsors, and we started looking for drivers.

“Ultimately, I came back because I believe I have the possibility to turn around the team.”

So how long will it take to turn the team around? After all, McLaren has set the benchmark for going from mid-table to champions.

“Two or three weeks!” Briatore says laughing, but you sense it is only half-in-jest. “This season is important because we need to be preparing ourselves for 2026 when we need start winning races.

“In ’26 we have the Mercedes engine and, in the meantime, we need to fit in more people with experience in our team. It is the same as at Benetton, people said it was a joke because we were a t-shirt maker but after we started winning some races, everybody wanted to come to the team, people started paying attention. In the same way as Renault.

“If everybody is working together, I believe in 2026 it is possible to be winning races and in 2027 fighting for the championship.”

Pierre Gasly, Alpine F1 Team, 3rd position, sprays champagne in celebration

Photo by: Lubomir Asenov / Motorsport Images

One question that has come up over the winter is which drivers will be charged with leading the team’s championship hopes. 

Pierre Gasly and Jack Doohan will both start the season-opener in Melbourne next week but Alpine is loaded with reserve drivers in the form of Paul Aron, Ryo Hirakawa, and Franco Colapinto. Briatore is pragmatic in his approach – and it is clear, if a driver is not performing, then Alpine has options to replace them.

Briatore aspires to win again and is looking to repeat the past success of Benetton and Renault, just in a different guise with Alpine.

He explains, providing a nod to the forthcoming F1 film starring Brad Pitt: “For me, Formula 1 is like managing a restaurant. It is the same. You’re managing people. And we need to ensure that 1000 people are working in the factory and I have a responsibility for their salary.

“I prefer to do what is best for the team. If you have two drivers, the choice is between two drivers. If you have five [sic], the choice is between five [sic].

“Of the people in the factory when I arrived, I knew maybe 20% of them but these people remember winning with Fernando Alonso.

Flavio Briatore and Fernando Alonso, Renault F1 Team celebrate victory in parc fermé

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

“I still see the quality of the team, I see that. The problem was the frustration in the way it was set up. You need to all be under the same roof.

“We did it with Benetton. We did it with Renault. If you see what we did at Benetton, Renault was the same movie, we just changed the actor.

“In Benetton, the actor was Michael Schumacher and in Renault the actor was Fernando Alonso. Now, we need to do another movie, but we don’t know yet who the actor will be.”