Flavio Briatore confirmed that Mercedes could buy part of Alpine

The Italian spoke at a press conference and assured that the star brand could acquire a portion of the Enstone team. In addition, the priest spoke of the objective for this year.

The rumor in recent days suggested that Toto Wolff, director and owner of 33.33% of the Mercedes team, was interested in buying a share package in Alpine. Quickly, the comments pointed to a new chapter of the Austrian’s classic confrontation with Christian Horner, former director of Red Bull and who would also be interested in acquiring part of the Enstone team. However, during the team bosses’ press conference at the Chinese GP, Flavio Briatore clarified the situation: it is not Toto, it is directly Mercedes.

The Italian appeared in the conference room to replace Steve Nielsen, absent due to illness. One of the queries pointed directly to the sale of 24% of the team he commands and which is held by Otro Capital, the American investment group that acquired the share package in 2023 for $233 million. With the revaluation of the F1 teams, that 24% would cost close to 700 million today.

“Every day is a new situation,” the Italian began to explain. “I don’t know what the latest one is, but what I can say is that I know that it is a negotiation with Mercedes, not with Toto, with Mercedes, and we are looking. At this moment we have three or four potential buyers. Don’t forget that we are talking about the shares of Otro, nothing to do with Alpine. They are the shares that this fund owns, it is called Other, an American fund. They want to sell 24% and some candidates are ready to make the deal,” Briatore added.

At some point Flavio himself was also pointed out as a possible buyer, but when asked if he was tempted, he was clear: “No, no, no, no. I’m just looking. I’m just seeing what’s happening and observing what’s happening. For our part, we have no communication with Toto at this time. So, if someone buys the shares, we will be very happy.” And he quickly clarified that if the sale of the Otro package to Mercedes was closed, that would not mean that Alpine would give in to the star brand in managing the team: “Mercedes, a group is looking to buy 24 percent of Otro. Normally a company, 75 percent decides and 25 percent is temporary, and this is the reality.”

Going into Alpine’s goals for this year and the future, Briatore was asked when he thought the French team would once again be a contender for wins and titles. “This is a very difficult question. I don’t know. We try to do our best and improve year after year. But now we have everything to be competitive. We are very happy with the engine we have. We are quite happy with the whole team. Of course, we have made many changes in the team and we need to prepare the base, the triangular stone to build the team. It’s been going on for a few years, like everyone else. We want to win and we will see. We are working hard and we will see what happens. But we are very committed, Renault is committed and the team is committed. So we’ll see. We do our best like everyone else.”

Finally, the septuagenarian priest outlined the objectives for this year and used the presence of Jonathan Wheatler, director of Audi, and Luarent Mekies, director of Red Bull, for his response: “Finish ahead of him (Wheatley), and close to him (Mekies), if possible! This is what we are looking for. We are looking to be position seven, eight, six, in that range, this range of the competition that we have. We have the four best teams, including Laurent, they are very, very strong, and after that is all the rest. So we fight to be ahead of everyone else. We are not happy with Australia at all. Our performance was very weak and it was a combination of different factors, and we know what the main problem we have in the car is. We try to resolve it as soon as possible. But it was the first race and it has been a long time since we have points on a Formula 1 date. At least we have a point with Pierre,” he concluded.