Briatore's controversial return exposes Renault's absurd F1 attitude

Flavio Briatore’s return to the Alpine F1 team 15 years after leaving when the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix scandal was exposed is the latest astounding decision by the beleaguered team.
Team principal Bruno Famin confirmed he will work closely with Briatore, who is an advisor to the whole Alpine F1 organisation.
Briatore’s role is characterised as being focused on what are called ‘top level areas’. So that includes driver decisions, assessing the current structure and advising on strategic matters.
Briatore has never taken full responsibility or apologised for his part in the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, where Nelson Piquet Jr deliberately crashed to cause a safety car that helped team-mate Fernando Alonso to win.
His appointment suggests the current structure needs to be assessed, but an honest assessment might turn the glare away from Enstone and Viry, where the cars and engines are produced by teams of very capable people, and lock onto those at the top of Renault who expect success on the cheap.

00:00 Briatore's Alpine role
02:14 His short-lived ban
04:05 Engine speculation
06:21 Underestimating F1
07:56 The real endgame?

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[Ikcatcher]

Ryan Reynolds has been real quiet since investing into Alpine

[kevinbarry]

Bringing a con artist and borderline gangster into the organization should work out just fine

[Addyboy]

Wouldn't it be hilarious if Flavio's first advise is to get rid of Famin considering he was in charge of the worst engine program prior to his promotion to team principal

[utetopia]

Alpine are like: "Hey, Red Bull have an old, out of touch, senile, loose cannon, as an advisor, and they seem to be doing alright. You think we should do similar? I've got someone in mind...."

[deeznoots]

Who would’ve thought that Cyril irritable was the only thing stopping the entire team from putting on the clown shoes

[DarkKnight]

Imagine alpine as a red bull powertrains customer lmao

[Pirr]

Andretti: *can't go into F1*
Alpine: Fine, I'll do it myself

[ferb_hd]

But allowing Andretti into F1 would be questionable because of competitiveness...

[MattGP]

Briatore is a highly intelligent person, who has twice built Team Enstone up to win championships. Yes he is controversial for rather obvious reasons, and very understandable why people aren't happy about his return, but he has that win at all costs attitude and strong leadership required to succeed. Very clear to see why Alpine want him. Twice, he built the team around a young world class driver. He also knew he has no technical knowledge, so he hired many top class engineers. He made sure he could compensate for his limitations. Highly talented man. Would class him as a flawed legend.

[melbournemandorla]

Why is the race not indignant regarding Pat Symonds? Because he’s a Brit?

[JamesFlemingIreland]

Im struggling to understand how this English channel thinks its "absurd" when Pat Symonds and McLaren are fair game.

[shmazy]

Imo Briatore is exactly what Alpine needs. They need to put Briatore in charge of everything.

[benoitcarne]

Very bad analysis. "unconvincing Alpine car brand" summarizes it all. For reminder, more A110 than 718 Cayman were sold in 2023. Suggesting Alpine could sell it's sports cars division is ridiculous.

[jamesfelstead]

Waiting for the Alpine sponsorship deal with Rich Energy next...

[Thermalions]

Their performance might actually improve with a customer engine.

[maartenholkers]

The Race was never so strickt and harsh on Ron Dennis or other McLaren (read; British team) members after the Spygate saga. Briatore did 1 thing wrong and he was punished for it by 15 years. Many other teams and high ranked members cheated along the history of F1, so don't be so hypocrite

[Tomatenmark-Mark]

Calling the move absurd is beyond me. He may have done some questionable things in the past but this doesn't alter his accomplishments. In addition: all big team bosses did a few odd things. Remember 2019 when Binotto made that agreement with the FIA about their engines. Nobody ever knew what exactly had happened.
If Alpine performs better again after him joining, it is the right decision.

[DrEmilSchaffhausenTherd]

I remember during their IPO that Ferrari said that being in F1 was worth $500m a year in advertising. Even if you say that Renault's results mean it gets 1/3 of that value that's still about the budget cap. So they may essentially be getting an F1 team for free on money they would otherwise have to spend on marketing.

[Ramtinss]

Spygate was arguably much worse than Crashgate, but because it was done by a British team you don't see the witch hunt.

[Fdaniell]

The thing I don’t understand is why no one is reacting to RBR’s inverse crash gate in Canada. RBR did the exact same as Benetton (put drivers and track workers at risk to manipulate the outcome) and they get a 3-place grid penalty while two guys get “life” bans. Perhaps both penalties were too extreme in both directions? Why is no one challenging this?