Abiteboul: Renault F1 role not affected by Alpine “mission”

Renault boss Cyril Abiteboul insists his role as team principal at the Formula 1 team remains unaffected despite being put in charge of the French manufacturer’s Alpine brand.

A statement from Groupe Renault ahead of this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix said that Abiteboul would be in charge of the ‘creation, organisation and implementation’ of the Alpine brand alongside his current role as F1 team boss.

It comes as part of a restructuring of the organisation to better focus on all of its key business including Renault, Dacia, Alpine and New Mobility.

New Renault CEO Luca de Meo will lead the French manufacturer, with Abiteboul in charge of Alpine, Denis le Vot looking after Dacia, and CFO Clotilde Delbos taking control of New Mobilities.

There have been suggestions that the changes might also trigger a renaming of the Renault F1 team operation.

Speaking in Friday’s FIA press conference at Monza, Abiteboul stressed his position within the F1 team will not be impacted by his “mission” to lead the Alpine brand.

“It’s okay I can work a lot,” Abiteboul explained. 

“What I have been asked to do is a mission, with a set of proposals, in order to structure a brand. I’ve not been asked to run the brand.

“It is not in an y way a permanent appointment whatsoever, that’s what I will be focusing some of the spare time I have given what I am doing on Formula 1.

“There is no question of change of team leadership for the time being, for the time I am doing this mission.”

Asked about the rumours that the Alpine name could replace Renault Sport Racing in F1, Abiteboul replied: “I’m afraid and I need to say that these questions are not for me, they’re corporate strategy questions for the CEO.

“My two cents is with the new Concorde Agreement, and finally the possibility to have a stable platform in Formula 1, a great marketing platform, again the way we want to make use of that platform will be up to the CEO.

“We have a flexible platform, we have different brands, probably rationalisation will be one of the things we will need to do given group financial results.

“We need to optimise the way that we do things, but first there is a strategy to define and it’s not up for me to disclose.”