Renault CEO full of optimism: 'Alpine will be the French Ferrari'
F1 News
- Toby McLuskie
Despite all the management shifts at the Alpine team, Luca De Meo is optimistic. Speaking at an event in Italy, he addressed the Italian branch of Sky Sports to discuss recent developments at the team. De Meo, CEO of parent company Renault, sees plenty of opportunities to make Alpine as big in France, as Ferrari is in Italy.
'Alpine will become the Ferrari of France'
Several French teams have been part of Formula 1 in recent decades, with varying degrees of success. France's Alpine has been on the grid since 2021, with Esteban Ocon's victory in Hungary in 2021 being its biggest success. Renault CEO De Meo has big ambitions to make F1 a passion again in France too. "The Alpine F1 team will become the French Ferrari," begins de De Meo. "In France, there is still too little passion for Formula 1. The reason is that French people do not have a symbol to cheer for like Italy has with Ferrari."
In the past, De Meo worked at Fiat, where he was responsible for the market launch of the then-revamped Fiat 500, and he takes this project as an example of what he wants to achieve with Alpine. "Our goal is to link Alpine's colours with feelings of passion, as we did with the Fiat 500 at the time. The idea is to tie history to these colours and thus create commitment," De Meo said.
Chaos at Alpine
The Alpine team has been the target of criticism and ridicule in recent weeks because of the large-scale changes in their workforce. In July, it was announced that Laurent Rossi resigned as Alpine CEO with immediate effect, while at Spa-Francorchamps the resignations of team bosses Otmar Szafnauer, Alan Permane and Pat Fry were made public.