Flavio Briatore Has Become the Face of Alpine, Explains David Coulthard

The Alpine F1 team has been struggling, both on the track and behind the scenes in the past couple of seasons. The Enstone-based squad has struggled to maintain a steady leadership structure, with frequent changes in management creating confusion, which has also led to a noticeable dip in their performance.

In only its second year of rebranding from Renault to Alpine [2022], the team secured fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship. Fast forward to 2024, and they are now fighting just to hold onto seventh place and have become kind of a laughingstock in the F1 community.

Amid these struggles for Alpine, Flavio Briatore re-entered the F1 world, taking on the role of Executive Advisor for the Enstone squad. Despite his controversial past, former F1 driver David Coulthard believes that Briatore’s presence is exactly what Alpine needed.

In a conversation on the Drive to Wynn podcast with former 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Justin Bell, Coulthard shared his thoughts on Briatore’s return. “Now that Flavio’s back, it feels that there is a public-facing person, where they were kind of faceless for a while,” the Briton explained.

“It was quite difficult to know, well, who’s in control, who’s leading the team?” Coulthard highlighted how F1 teams need “strong personalities” in leadership positions to take responsibility for the smooth running and the failures of the team. He mentioned that while Briatore has a controversial past, he knows how to “get things done”.

Alpine’s recent improved form including its double podium in Brazil has been a cascading effect of Briatore’s changes behind the scenes with the signing of Oliver Oakes as the team principal. The technical brains of David Sanchez have also helped them make a decent step forward. But Briatore’s past is still a blot that the Italian cannot leave behind.

Briatore’s controversial re-entry into F1

While Briatore’s return has definitely had an immediate impact on Alpine’s overall performance in 2024, it wasn’t without people talking about his controversial past in the sport.

Many still associate him with the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix scandal, where the Italian was found guilty of orchestrating a crash to manipulate the race outcome. Although he was handed a lifetime ban from F1 in 2009, this decision was overturned on appeal in 2013.

His latest involvement with Alpine marks his first official role in the sport since the scandal. However, Alpine and other F1 teams have downplayed the controversy, insisting that “Crashgate” is a thing of the past.