In recent developments, Ryan Reynolds along with some investors acquired 24% of the Alpine F1 team by investing an incredible $218,000,000. This makes the valuation of the Alpine team go over $800 million. But not everyone was pleased with the investment, as Eddie Jordan called it “ridiculous” to spend so much money for a team, which is not even competing for the championship.
Reynolds’ consortium that took over Alpine’s shares included some other actors like his co-owner at Wrexham Football Club, Rob McElhenney, and Bournemouth co-owner Michael B. Jordan. The list also includes US investment firms like Otro Capital, RedBird Capital, and Maximum Efforts Investment.
Among them, Otro Capital in particular has a history with sports, with their investments in NFL, Basketball, Baseball, and Cricket. The company has a partnership with the Dallas Cowboys in NFL, and New York Yankees in MLB and has focused on the Indian cricket market.
Jordan slams Reynolds’s investment
The renowned F1 figure Eddie Jordan has criticized the move made by Ryan Reynolds and his consortium. Speaking about it as per Soy Motor, the British international said, “I find it very strange to consider that the value of a team is at 815 million euros. [891 million USD] It’s absurd. It’s ridiculous.”
“It doesn’t make sense from a financial point of view, the business model doesn’t hold up. That’s the first thing. So which one? it can be the value of Ferrari, Mercedes, or Red Bull, that’s the point I want to get to. Alpine is nowhere near them yet,” Jordan further asserted to GB News.
Admittedly, the Briton pointed out that it was really excessive to pay that much amount to a team that is so far away from the leaders such as Red Bull, Mercedes, or Ferrari.
However, the former Jordan team boss also agreed with the fact that this investment will surely boost Renault in the US market because of such huge names involved.
How far behind is Alpine as compared to the leaders?
Notably, the French team has always been a strong mid-table team, with very few occasions when they were on top. They have only managed to win one Grand Prix till now, since joining Formula 1 in 2021.
The Enstone-based team started the 2023 season in the same fashion. With one podium and multiple top 10 finishes, in the first 8 races, Alpine is currently in P5 with 44 points and is looking strong to finish in top 5. This amounts to 78 points deficit against the nearest P4 Ferrari and a mammoth 277 points deficit against Red Bull.
Despite their current positions, Alpine is planning to improve from here using the cash injection they had recently. As per F1’s report, Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi stated that the incremental revenue generated from this investment will be further reinvested.
This will be done for the Mountain Climber plan of Alpine that is “aimed at catching up with top teams in terms of state-of-the-art facilities and equipment.”
