Flavio Briatore says he doesn’t know why Alpine isn’t beating the likes of McLaren or Ferrari, as the team has “everything” that it needs to win Grands Prix.
The Italian, who won back-to-back titles with the Enstone team and Fernando Alonso in 2005 and 2006, has the added incentive of his bonus being dependent on the team’s result in the Constructors’ Championship.
Flavio Briatore: I don’t know why Alpine aren’t beating McLaren and Ferrari
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At the start of this season, he promised Alpine’s parent company, Renault, that the team would finish inside the top six in the standings.
That’s a target the team is currently meeting, with Alpine sixth in the standings, only five points behind fifth-placed Racing Bulls.
Briatore, however, says Alpine should be fighting at the sharp end of the grid for race wins.
Having led the Enstone team when it still raced under the Renault branding to back-to-back titles two decades ago, the Italian is adamant the team can do it.
“We have everything to win,” he told Darren Cox in The Race Business’s ‘In Conversation With…’ series, “because, you know, the agreement we’ve done with Mercedes is a super agreement, because we picked up the right partner.
“And we’re investing in CapEx a lot of money in the factory.
“We have everything.
“We need to put the pieces together. To put the pieces together, you need to be a little bit more creative than what we are now, take more risk than what we take now.
“But I’m sure this team… I don’t know why we’re not winning. I don’t know why we don’t beat McLaren. I don’t know why we don’t beat Ferrari.
“We’ve done it before. It’s only a question to believe what you’re doing. It’s a question to compete with these people.”
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Alpine signed Briatore in 2024 as an executive advisor to the F1 team. He stepped into the de facto team boss role when Oliver Oakes resigned in May last year.
The 76-year-old secured the deal for Alpine to run Mercedes engines as he had lost “confidence” in the Renault power unit.
Alpine has secured one podium this season with Pierre Gasly finishing third at the Monaco Grand Prix.
“Sure, you need the first year,” Briatore explained. “This is the first year we have a little bit of the pieces together.
“Last year, I promised to Renault, next year we are in the first six. If we make it, maybe we are in the first five. But surely, the first six from P10 to P6 is already there. It is what I promised.”
A promise that his bonus is dependent on.
“My bonus is in the first six,” he revealed. “Anyway, at least I take the bonus. But it’s…”
Asked about the targets for his bonus for F1 2027, he replied: “No, no, this year. This year, next year, plenty of bonus.”
Briatore’s satisfaction with the current state of Alpine runs to “about six and a half”.
Explaining why, he said: “The more you go, the more difficult it gets. But we have a super relationship with Mercedes.
“We have the Mercedes power units now, which completely changed the feeling for everybody here. We know that at least one part of the team is the best; we also have a gearbox from Mercedes.
“Now, our people are working from the nose to the driver, because this is the problem we have. At the back, we’re okay with the Mercedes engine and the gearbox. We lost a lot of good people in the factory because at one point, there was not a clear way to go.”
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