Nico Rosberg shares Alpine fear with F1 struggles “damaging the brand”

Nico Rosberg has warned that Alpine’s on-track F1 struggles and off-track instability are damaging the brand.

Alpine currently sit last in the constructors’ championship having only managed to score 11 points across the opening 10 races of what is proving to be a difficult 2025 campaign.

The French squad are also undergoing further management upheaval behind the scenes, with Renault confirming that CEO Luca de Meo has decided to step down from his role.

2016 F1 world champion Rosberg believes the “lack of stability” is hurting Alpine while their current competitive state is “damaging the brand”.

“We know how important stability is for the performance of a team," Rosberg told the latest episode of the Sky Sports F1 Show.

"It's one of the weaknesses of Ferrari also who've had a lack of stability as well - changing a lot of leadership positions all the time in the last years compared with someone like Mercedes, where if I walk into Mercedes today, the leaders from my time 15 years ago are still there in most of the key roles.

"It's really awesome to see that continuity, and at the same time, there's young talent coming through as well to complement.

“So Alpine… When I was at Mercedes and we were driving around last place, they were almost going to pull the plug every weekend because they're paying a lot of money and it's anti-marketing, it's marketing that is damaging the brand of Alpine and Renault if you're just driving around in last place.”

Rosberg also considered how movements in the wider automotive industry could impact the team.

“Also in the face of the challenging environment for the automotive industry, where sales are plummeting," he added. "The shift to e-mobility is a struggle, the Chinese are coming and conquering more and more market share. Tesla is taking market share.

"The first thing that you cut is marketing budget, and marketing the F1 team falls under marketing budget. So we need to keep an eye on that now with new leadership, whether he's pro-F1 or against F1 but a difficult situation."

Could the Alpine F1 team be sold?

De Meo had previously insisted the F1 team would not be sold but could that change following his departure?

“Flavio will say, look this doesn’t have to cost Renault anything,” Ted Kravitz said. “Formula 1 does not have to cost any holding company anything. With the budget cap and the prize money, it can be cost neutral.

"With the sponsorship from BWT and all these other sponsors that Alpine has, if they keep costs under control and Flavio says he will keep bringing in sponsors then it will be cost neutral.

“He’ll hope he can convince the new CEO, whoever that is, that he would continue to keep the F1 thing going.

“Will they continue to be called Alpine because they want to promote their sporty brand? That’s up for discussion. Is it better to be called Renault?

“They are on the cusp of maybe a better 2026 because they are going to have a Mercedes power unit. So I think they would be well advised, the Renault Group, just to hold on and see what happens in 2026 and make a decision after that.

“But it’s not impossible they will sell the team because there are buyers out there who are looking.”