'Departure of top Alpine executives may be related to Cadillac takeover'
Rumors
The departure of Otmar Szafnauer, Alan Permane and Pat Fry could just be linked to a big announcement sometime in the coming weeks or months. Rumours of Andretti-Cadillac joining Alpine's team are getting stronger and stronger, which AS heard at the Spa-Francorchamps paddock this weekend.
Andretti-Cadillac has applied to the FIA to appear on the Formula 1 grid with its own team from 2026. Tens of millions have already been invested in the project, but the application is meeting a lot of resistance. Owner Liberty Media are not eager for more racing teams and F1 teams also have concerns.
Alpine on sale?
So the Americans are now said to be in the process of getting Alpine over. The French brand's Alpine A110, its only road model, sold just over 3,500 cars worldwide in 2022. The aforementioned Spanish newspaper calls that "not bad", but this year's sales figures justify the existence of a team in the king class of motorsport. Alpine's own performance in Formula 1 is also not satisfactory, which means it is currently just costing money rather than making money.
For Andretti-Cadillac, a takeover would be good news as it would allow them to develop their own chassis, something that AS says would not be possible with its current in-house facilities. What about the engine? That would have to remain the Renault engine. Cadillac confirmed to GPblog back in January this year that there was a very real chance that they would run with Renault engines if they were to enter Formula 1 (with their own team). That story was later confirmed by Renault/Alpine themselves.
Interestingly, 24 per cent of Alpine shares were already sold last month to a group of investors (consisting of Otro Capital, RedBird Capital Partners and Maximum Effort Investments) for around 200 million. So a quarter of French Alpine is now already American/North American.