2025 Alpine F1 Team

[djos]

I think of they give Horner a slice of the alpine F1 company, he’d jump at the chance to prove RedBull wasn’t just successful because of Newey.

It would be a very smart hire, because he has the clout and experience to keep the Renault meddlers at bay.

[SealTheRealDeal]

How much bad blood remains between Horner and Renault? He was trash talking their engines even when he was winning championships with them. There's been a lot of personnel changes at Renault/Alpine since the Red Bull-Renault break up (including the discontinuation of their powertrains division), but I wouldn't be surprised if Horner is persona non grata there.

[TeamKoolGreen]

How much bad blood remains between Horner and Renault? He was trash talking their engines even when he was winning championships with them. There's been a lot of personnel changes at Renault/Alpine since the Red Bull-Renault break up (including the discontinuation of their powertrains division), but I wouldn't be surprised if Horner is persona non grata there.

Cyrille Abitobol was seen shmoozing with Red Bull staff a couple years ago. That is all ancient history in F1 time

[Foryster]

No upgrades on winter, no upgrades during a season.

It's so hard to support this team.

The team retained the same chassis (and same engine?) for three seasons between 2019 to 2021, due to targeting being a front runner on the new 2022 regulations.

Surely Alpine's approach to target success for the 2026 regulation changes is once again the same?

What a way to finish regulations period which they started at P4 in championships with Alonso and Piastri as junior.

I.e., the strategy of avoiding new chassis or new engine in 2019-2020 worked, if giving more modest results than the intended championship wins, hence repeating it?

Their WCC results from 2018 to 2022 were either 4th or 5th consistently, using an old chassis and engine for most of that.

Their strategy basically gave them the same results.

Yes, they drove same chassis from 2019 to 2021 (for 2019 it was a completely new car, built from scratch, with new engine). But the aero and layout was changing massively. Just look at the "kettle" from 2021! Compare 2020 to 2019 car (the completely different nose). So they were changes, big ones, from year to year.

And what do we see now? A car that didn't have any changes since autumn last year. It looks the same. It is the same as last year. There are absolutely no upgrades to it. Alpine is the only team not to bring any upgrades during a season. NOTHING.

Is this a good strategy? We will see next year. But it's hard to be their supporter this year. The farewell year for Renault. It's simply sad.

And if they want to take Horner, they need to put serious money to invest into the team and finally build it.

[Macklaren]

How much bad blood remains between Horner and Renault? He was trash talking their engines even when he was winning championships with them. There's been a lot of personnel changes at Renault/Alpine since the Red Bull-Renault break up (including the discontinuation of their powertrains division), but I wouldn't be surprised if Horner is persona non grata there.

Yes all the people are gone and the engine is gone too. If Flavio can come back, anyone can.

If the team doesn't improve after 3 years of Horner, Flavio, Mercedes engines and potentially Alonso, they will likely pull the plug and sell the team

[vorticism]

And if they want to take Horner, they need to put serious money to invest into the team and finally build it.

Horner's story was somewhat a result of Mateschitz, who was obsessed with extreme sports and was willing to make a big investment into the biggest motorsport market that is F1, which is itself an extreme sport, Red Bull Air Races on wheels. Horizontal skydiving. Who's going to supply such a plan, interest, and funding, to a Horner type? A big OEM car maker would have the funding, but not necessarily the other components. It's worth understanding where the old RBR came from, and how long it was realistically going to be able to keep going. It seems to be that the story of Red Bull the past few years was one of losing Dietrich Mateschitz, not simply a story of Horner, Newey, and Verstappen.

The closest equivalents to a Mateschitz type currently seem to be Stroll and Haas.

[TeamKoolGreen]

I think of they give Horner a slice of the alpine F1 company, he’d jump at the chance to prove RedBull wasn’t just successful because of Newey.

It would be a very smart hire, because he has the clout and experience to keep the Renault meddlers at bay.

He would. Horner also has his commercial and marketing guys with him. Renualt don't want to sell the whole thing because F1 is so popular right now. But they would probably sell Horner a big equity stake. Provided Horner comes up with the money, which he could. His commercial and marketing guys got the Visa sponsorship for Vcarb. One would assume they were also the brains behind the Oracle deal which expires in 2027. Maybe Oracle would be interested in following Horner.

Christian Horner is only 51 years old. He's got 25-30 years left in him for another project.