Mercedes withdraws from talks over Alpine minority stake

Mercedes is no longer in talks to purchase the 24 percent stake in Alpine’s Formula 1 team, sources with knowledge of the negotiations confirmed to The Athletic. 

As first reported by BBC Sport on Friday and sources later confirmed to The Athletic, Mercedes’ withdrawal stemmed from feeling the stakes were overpriced: Otro Capital was asking for $720m (£536m), which would put Alpine’s valuation at $3bn (£2.2bn). 

Mercedes has been one of the groups circling this potential investment opportunity. During the Chinese Grand Prix weekend, Flavio Briatore, the de facto team boss at Alpine, confirmed talks with Mercedes were occurring and that there were “three or four potential buyers” at that time.  

It’s been known that one of the other parties that have shown interest include former Red Bull team principal Christian Horner. The other 76 percent of Alpine is owned by Renault. 

Otro, Alpine and Renault were approached by The Athletic for comment.

Mercedes’ bid, though, brought some scrutiny from the F1 paddock, specifically concerning the idea of one entity owning a stake in multiple teams. Red Bull has done so for two decades, when Racing Bulls (formerly known as Toro Rosso) joined the F1 grid in 2006. That came a year after Red Bull Racing, the senior team, entered the sport. 

McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown has long been an outspoken critic of multi-team ownership, including during the team’s season launch in 2024. 

“The thing I would like to see us as a sport focus on, and needs to sit on the regulations side, is the A/B team co-ownership I believe is a serious issue for the fairness of the sport for the fans,” he said at the time. “That’s why it’s pretty much not allowed in any other form of major sport, and I’d like to see us as an industry focus on that before it gets to a level of being where Formula One once was, which was very out of balance because people are playing by the rules but a different set of rules.”

And this month, he took aim at the topic again. He penned a letter to FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem and detailed the sporting, technical, financial and governance misgivings he had about the matter. 

Brown’s letter and Mercedes’ initial interest in the Alpine stake arose in Friday’s news conference during the Canadian Grand Prix weekend, and team principal Andrea Stella pointed out how “this is a championship between independent constructors.” 

“We believe very strongly that this principle should be enforced totally,” he continued. “And the reason why we want this principle and this point to be discussed is because we think, from a practical point of view, there’s more that we should do.” 

There are clear rules and regulations around what can and cannot be shared among teams, though. Certain car parts are allowed, which is why customer teams exist. Racing Bulls team boss Alan Permane noted how the “relationship with Red Bull Racing is very much a customer-supplier relationship,” saying the parts they take from the team include suspension, gearbox and more — those of which “are allowed under the technical regulations, which we follow very rigorously.” The engine is another component that Racing Bulls uses from Red Bull as well. 

He went on to say that the team does go to great lengths to make sure that they abide by the rules, and Red Bull Racing team principal Laurent Mekies said they’re “completely supportive to take any further step to ensure that regardless of our strategic partnership or regardless of our ownership structure, that we race independently on track.” 

“We all want 11 teams racing independently on track, and we have made many steps as a sport in recent weeks, in recent months, in recent years, to try to ensure more and more independence from every team racing on track,” Mekies said in Montreal. “If any stakeholders, let it be another team or anyone else, would feel that more steps are needed to ensure 11 teams racing independently, we would support.” 

Time will tell over what happens to the 24 percent stake that Otro Capital is looking to sell. Alpine appears to be trending towards a different spot than it was last year, where it finished last in the standings. It’s in a healthier fifth place this season, a year where it is buying engines and gearboxes from Mercedes, and just announced a notable title sponsor deal with Gucci from the 2027 season.