The Alpine F1 team has received a €200 million (£170m) boost from an investment group including Wrexham FC owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.
The Enstone-based F1 team, run by Renault under their Alpine brand, announced it has sold shares amounting to a 24% equity stake of Alpine Racing Ltd.The group of investors consists of Otro Capital, RedBird Capital Partners – which holds a large stake in Fenway Sports Group, owners of English Premier League football club Liverpool – and Maximum Effort Investments, led by Hollywood actor Ryan Reynolds along with fellow actor and Wrexham FC owner Rob McElhenney. Another celebrity, ‘Black Panther’ star Michael B Jordan, has joined as a co-investor.
The share purchase values Alpine’s F1 team at $900m (£700m). The buy-in only involves Alpine’s F1 team and does not include Renault’s power unit factory at Viry-Chatillon in France, which remains owned by Renault.
Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi said the investment would enhance the team’s performance “at all levels.” Rossi said the investors would “bring their recognised expertise to boost our media and marketing strategy, essential to support our sporting performance over the long term.
“Second,” Rossi continued, “the incremental revenue generated will in turn be reinvested in the team, in order to further accelerate our ‘Mountain Climber’ plan, aimed at catching up with top teams in terms of state-of-the-art facilities and equipment.”
James Toney, co-founder of Maximum Effort Investments, said that there was “tremendous untapped potential” in the Alpine F1 team.
“We are eager to help shine a light on this incredible team,” Toney said. “We’re thankful to our partners at Otro Capital and RedBird Capital Partners and look forward to diving in with them, as well as our co-investors Michael B. Jordan and Rob McElhenney.”
Alpine finished fourth in last year’s constructors’ championship after beating rivals McLaren to the ‘best of the rest’ position behind last year’s three strongest teams. The team currently sit in fifth place on 44 points after eight rounds.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
2023 F1 season
- FIA president cleared of alleged interference in two 2023 races
- First week viewing figures for new Drive to Survive season fall again
- Max who? Drive to Survive season six prefers its favourite faces
- RaceFans’ complete 2023 season review
- The F1 drivers who pulled off the 10 biggest charges through the field in 2023
stefano (@alfa145)
26th June 2023, 11:21
is that the mid-tier team that went to play football (soccer) with the US female team and won 12-0?
MichaelN
26th June 2023, 15:12
Yes but no. That match did happen, but it wasn’t the case that both fielded current teams. Or rather… Wrexham did, in part. It’s kinda complicated. Basically this whole tournament was a show, featuring tons of old timers, fan favourites, and people who haven’t competitively played in years, some even over a decade. It also wasn’t a full team, nor was off side enforced. It’d be a bit like having Alain Prost and Eddie Irvine race karts against Paul Tracy and Josef Newgarden and then say Indycar embarrassed F1.
MacLeod (@macleod)
27th June 2023, 8:13
Not sure if Josef and Paul can embarras Alain Prost (he is still in good shape and cart still in events and let the youngsters still show he is quit good….)
SadF1fan
26th June 2023, 12:54
If Rob and Ryan are going to have an influence on the management and organisation of Alpine F1 team than that can only be considered a positive for Alpine/Renault.
For the past years it’s been at best very chaotic and poorly organised, with a focus on the wrong things, resulting a stream of clients and driver that ran away from Alpine/Renault as quickly as they could.
Simon
26th June 2023, 14:04
The hackneyed “Hollywood script” rubbish was bad enough in the football. Gawd knows what it’d be like with Croft 😱
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
26th June 2023, 14:47
Uh-oh, more shiny white teeth and footbluhs getting in the way on the grid.
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
26th June 2023, 14:55
Only with these sour F1 fans is a good cash influx into a team, ensuring its continued financial stability, somehow a bad thing.
It’d be amusing if it wasn’t so sad.
Jack (@jackisthestig)
26th June 2023, 15:26
It’s not the money that’s the problem, it’s the attention seeking riff-raff that comes with it.
Spencer (@spencer)
26th June 2023, 17:19
“Rif-Raff?” Since its inception, the sport has been dominated by perceived glamour and celebrity. Conversely it has also been dominated by nefarious investors with funding of questionable origin. Pick your poison. On a day like today your choice is Vladimir Kim or Ryan Reynolds. F1 is an unnecessary vanity sport which is insanely capital intensive. Where should the money come from? A few smiling celebs has never and will not diminish the sport.
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
26th June 2023, 19:09
In fact, it will just increase interest in the sport, and as such benefits all teams income as more sponsors will be interested in the exposure.
All this gatekeeping is just tiring, honestly.
MichaelN
26th June 2023, 19:57
There’s always Formula SAE for everyone’s favorite bit of high brow racing.
What was F1 last driver with a graduate degree, Marc Gené back in 2003?
anon
26th June 2023, 21:05
MichaelN, no, there are quite a few more recent degree holders in the sport – to list a few, Lucas di Grassi (2010) has a degree in economics, Rio Haryanto (2016) and Jolyon Palmer (2017) both had degrees in business management, whilst Sirotkin (2018) had an engineering degree.
I believe that the most recent driver would technically be Nikita Mazepin in 2021, who was studying a degree in economics and literature at Moscow State University and officially completed his bachelor degree in September that year.
James Neutron (@phillyspur)
27th June 2023, 17:43
@sjaakfoo sadly there’s no pleasing some people. They live to moan about everything and most times think they’re being clever and witty with their criticism when in reality they’re just screaming “get off my lawn”.
MichaelN
26th June 2023, 15:17
Probably a good thing for the team, given that Renault has been infamously stingy in funding the operation.
Having a bunch of investors and shared ownership seems to work well for the team known as Mercedes, too. And with F1 basically being a money making machine, the results aren’t that important either.