Stephan Heublein
Editor-in-Chief
You don’t read Stephan’s author name as often as you used to, but (almost) all of our videos and articles cross his path at some point.MORE
A highly explosive duel between the two drivers, a catastrophic start to the season and rumours of a sale or withdrawal as an engine supplier: Things are going haywire at the Alpine F1 team. That is now set to end. Flavio Briatore, an old acquaintance, is set to clean up the Renault factory team.
Briatore was already team boss in Enstone in the 1990s and 2000s, at the time at Benetton and Renault respectively. Now the 74-year-old is returning to Formula 1 in an advisory role as “Executive Advisor”. His last engagement in the premier class of motorsport ended ingloriously: As a result of the Crashgate scandal, he was initially banned for life by the FIA. However, the ban was lifted in early 2010.
F1 return: What is Flavio Briatore doing at Alpine?
Now Briatore is to be commissioned by Renault CEO Luca de Meo to get the Formula 1 department of the Alpine factory team up and running. The Italian will concentrate primarily on scouting top talent and his relationships in the F1 driver market. At the same time, however, he will also be to take a close look at the F1 commitment in this form, evaluate the structures and advise the team on strategic questions within the sport.
After the personnel shake-up over the past year and a half, which has led to Bruno Famin now being the top manager, Alpine is currently navigating extremely troubled waters. Rumors are already circulating in the paddock about the sale of the racing team and Renault’s withdrawal as an engine supplier. Famin is even said to have approached Mercedes about supplying power units in order to increase the value of the team in the event of a possible sale.
Christian tells you more about the unrest at Alpine and the possible danger of explosion in our news video directly from the paddock in Barcelona:
The Crashgate scandal of 2008 still has repercussions. Felipe Massa lost the world championship title fight against Lewis Hamilton. The Brazilian has now filed a lawsuit against Formula 1:
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