Explained: Why failed Mercedes-Alpine F1 negotiations broke down

A clearly frustrated Flavio Briatore says that attempts by Otro Capital to sell its shareholding in the Alpine Formula 1 team are “going nowhere.”

Otro bought the stake in the team in December 2023 for $200 million. Since then the value of all F1 teams has continued to rise, and the Otro stake has been up for sale for some months, with figures from $600 to $800 mentioned as the potential price.

The Otro stake is widely regarded as the only current route for a potential buyer to gain a foothold in the sport.

Along with parties from outside F1 – including a consortium involving Christian Horner – Toto Wolff had been negotiating for the Mercedes F1 team to take over the shareholding. However negotiations ended last week.

Briatore insisted that the potential sale is nothing to do with him or the Alpine team, but was between Otro and the wider Renault Group.

“Otro is nothing to do with the team,” he said. “Otro is a hedge fund, they bought 24% of the team Alpine two years ago, and at the moment they want to sell. Like everybody knows, they were negotiating with Toto Wolff, behind the Mercedes team.

“Two days ago the agreement failed, all the negotiations. It really has nothing to do with the team, we don't have any pressure from Renault Group regarding Otro. This is really the problem of Renault Group, it's not the problem of the Alpine team."

Asked why the Mercedes deal had failed he made it clear where he thought the blame lay: “It's very easy, the price was too high. Toto was very fair. I don’t think [the] Otro people are fair. Toto in all the negotiations was very fair.”

Pushed on the potential involvement of Horner he stressed that Renault would have to agree any deal while having another dig at Otro.

“Otro is a Renault Group problem, not really a team problem,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of negotiations around, different people, including Christian. For me whatever solution is found by Renault, I'm very happy to accept whatever the solution is.

“Whoever buys the shares from Otro needs to have the blessing from Renault. I think it’s very difficult for somebody to spend $600 million to buy a minority in one company if it's not agreed with the majority.

“I don't understand the politics of Otro honestly, because in this moment, it's going nowhere.”

Briatore has known Horner since the latter running the Arden GP2 team, and along with Bernie Ecclestone was an early mentor of the future RBR boss.

Asked by Crash.net if he would be happy to work with Horner he made it clear that he would have no issues.

“I'd be happy to work with anybody,” he said. “For me, welcome, I have zero problem, especially with Christian. I have a super relationship with Christian. I’ve known him for 20 years, and we were working together on the engine, I supplied the engine at the time with Renault. We were working for five together. Zero problem.”