F1 Expert Questions Why Renault Didn’t Hire Alain Prost as Team Principal

Renault/Alpine has had a history of having a rather bizarre and complicated management structure within their Formula 1 team. At one point, they even had four-time world champion Alain Prost as part of that structure. F1 pundit Tim Hauraney recently said that he is puzzled by the fact that Prost was never made the team principal at Renault.

In 2017, Prost joined Renault as a special advisor to the team, and two years later, he became a Non-Executive Director for the side and remained in that role when the outfit was rebranded as Alpine in 2021. However, his contract was not renewed for the 2022 season, leading to his exit.

Despite having such big names involved in the management, Renault/Alpine could not realize its full potential in F1 in the last decade and a half or so. According to Hauraney, that’s because the team could never settle down on a proper chain of command, with constant interruptions and reshuffling of the top management structure.

Four-time #F1 world champion and former Renault advisor Alain Prost has slammed Renault’s mishandling of its works F1 team in an interview with L’Equipe – with former Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi, who drove Prost out of the organisation, coming in for particular criticism: pic.twitter.com/E0MzOhU7ON

— The Race (@wearetherace) July 29, 2023

In a recent conversation with Adam Wylde on ‘Nailing The Apex’ podcast, Hauraney explained, “I remember Alain Prost a few years ago was a part of Renault when they had like this really weird multi-structure of team principles… And I was kind of like, ‘Why isn’t he just your team boss? He needs to be your team principal. He has to be at the top and then everybody else is going to be underneath him because he’s been in Formula 1 his whole life.’”

He even pointed out how Prost himself once said that he was disappointed with Renault because their corporate management meddled immensely with the F1 team’s operations. Since Alpine has been struggling, they have made all kinds of changes recently. One of them is to drop their in-house power unit program from 2026 onwards.

Alpine will partner with Mercedes

In the last couple of seasons, the handling of the Alpine team has gone from bad to worse with several key figures either leaving on their own or being shown the exit door. And now the team is being jointly run by executive advisor Flavio Briatore and new team principal Oliver Oakes.

However, when there were talks about Briatore coming on board, it was rumored that Alpine was planning to sell the team, which was later dismissed by the Italian as he promised to get Alpine back on the podium by 2027.

: Eddie Jordan believes that Alpine, under Flavio Briatore’s leadership, will be a team to watch in the coming years. Jordan revealed that Briatore has a clear plan to bring Alpine to the podium by 2026 or 2027, focusing on the car’s performance rather than hiring a superstar… pic.twitter.com/LB2ZAr1gzx

— F1 Naija (@f1_naija) October 3, 2024

It has now been confirmed that Renault has decided to stop the F1 engine program at Viry at the end of 2025. After that, they will reportedly partner with Mercedes for their power units.