Alpine advisor Flavio Briatore insists that he should not be viewed as the "bad guy" in a plan by Renault to end its Formula 1 engine programme.
As part of a review by Renault CEO Luca de Meo into the future of the Alpine F1 squad, the French manufacturer is ready to abandon its works power unit programme and instead switch to Mercedes customer engines from 2026.
A formal decision on the matter is due to be made on 30 September, when staff at Renault’s Viry-Chatillon factory near Paris will be informed about their bosses’ vision for the future.
However, all indications point to Alpine making the switch to Mercedes and ending Renault’s works efforts that first began in 1977.
Last week, representatives of Renault's engine staff at Viry issued a statement calling on de Meo to rethink plans to kill off the engine project which they say has been triggered by costs being reduced from $120 million of development to $17m per year as a supply deal.
“We do not understand what justifies killing this elite entity that is the Viry-Chatillon site and betraying its legend and its DNA by grafting a Mercedes heart into our F1 Alpine [car],” wrote the Social and Economic Council of Alpine employees.
But while Briatore is heavily involved in making changes at Alpine that he thinks are necessary to get it back towards the front of F1, he has made clear that the call on the engine was not something he instigated.
Asked why he did not want to give Viry a chance to show what it could do, he said: “The problem is the evidence.
“Regarding the engine, it was decided already from the management, and for me it is fine.
“Whatever our chairman decides, fine. This was decided already, soon before I arrived in the team.”
Pushed to clarify that the engine switch was not his plan, Briatore said: “No, I am not the bad guy all the time….everything else you [can] blame me. Not this one.”
No sale, not so many people
Briatore is not afraid to make changes at Alpine that he thinks are necessary to ensure it turns around what has been a recent decline in form.
One issue that Briatore has suggested as a factor in its form is that there have been too many people involved in decisions, which has held it back.
While that factor has prompted the idea that it could mean a trimming down of the Enstone operation, Briatore says that is not necessarily what will happen.
Asked if his comments meant he was going to cut jobs, Briatore said: “I don't know. At Enstone I don't know if we have too many people or not. Let me check.
“We don't want to cut any jobs. We want to just have an efficiency. The people who want to stay with us, they are welcome to stay. But we need everybody in the same line.
“We want to have people with the experience, the people working together as an F1 team. After that, we don't want to fire anybody.”
Briatore has also dismissed any suggestion that the changes he is making at Enstone, and especially the cutting of ties with Renault’s engine programme, is about preparing the F1 squad to be sold.
“No, there is nothing for sale,” he said. “Everything, we buy. If we had the opportunity, we [would] buy another one [team] and I put a managing director in.
“Something is very clear. Luca de Meo never wants to sell the team. Question finito.”
