An offer has arrived for Otro Capital's 24 per cent shareholding in Alpine, and Flavio Briatore has used it to put a number on the Enstone team that dwarfs the published estimates.
Otro - an investor group whose backers include Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, Rory McIlroy and Anthony Joshua - bought its stake for around 200million euros in June 2023, when Alpine was valued at roughly $900m. Forbes currently puts the team at $2.45bn. Put that figure to Briatore in an interview with Darren Cox for The Race Business, and Alpine's de facto team boss rejected it outright.
"No, no, we are more," Briatore said. "We have an offer, we have an [offer] for the 24 per cent of Otro, the valuation [is] 3.2 [billion]. So we have 40% of the valuation of Renault. All [of] Renault is worth 8.3. And we're working at this 3.5 [billion] valuation. So we're representing 40% or 50%."
That is the striking part of the claim: on Briatore's arithmetic, the F1 team is worth something close to half of its own parent company. He also set it against where he came in, having part-owned Benetton, Ligier and Minardi at various points in the 1990s.
"I sold my share in Benetton, and the value of the team was $80million," he said. "OK, now you're talking about $3.5billion, $4billion. And everybody's predicting, you're talking with these finance people, talking about, 'OK, Formula 1 in three, four years, the team is worth $10billion.'"
Asked whether F1 team valuations had topped out, he joked: "If the team was mine, I'd have sold already!"
The complication is who gets to buy. Renault holds approval rights over any transfer of the Otro shares until September 2026, and Christian Horner is understood to have lodged a bid as he pursues a shareholding rather than simply another team principal's chair. Renault Group CEO Francois Provost has already made the group's position plain.
"There is no discussion today with Christian," Provost told the Press Association in June. "We are assessing the options. I want the Renault Group to keep the control of our team, whoever could be the successor of Otro."
Provost also played down what the sale means for the racing operation. "The first one is that this Otro issue doesn't impact us at all as a team because we are in control," he said. "And the second point is that we will keep control of our Formula 1 team. Alpine is an independent team, and we intend to keep control."
Briatore's read on the September deadline is more relaxed than the coverage of it suggests - and his reasoning is commercial rather than sentimental. A minority stake at that price, he argues, is only worth buying if the buyer is aligned with the majority owner who holds the actual power.
"Not really my problem, this is more the issue of Renault," he said. "Sure, to have a partner, of 24%, I expect somebody to give not only the finance, [but to] give some help in technology or whatever, or whatever in finance. But in September, I don't think nothing [will] happen dramatically, because I see it as very difficult for somebody to buy 24% of one company, with no agreement with the majority. I never see somebody spend 600 million to buy a minority, to be signed as partner, if you don't agree with the majority."
He was similarly unbothered about the identity of whoever ends up on the share register. "Renault is negotiating. For the team point of view, for me, it makes no difference. We have Otro, now tomorrow we have somebody else."
Provost has separately described Renault's relationship with Otro as "not successful", which explains why the seller is motivated. What it does not settle is whether anyone will pay roughly $600m-$900m for a quarter of a team whose majority owner has spent the year insisting it is not ceding an inch of control. Mercedes walked away from talks over the same stake at the end of May on price grounds.
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*Originally published on [News Formula One](https://newsformula.one/article/briatore-puts-alpine-at-3-5bn-as-a-bid-lands-for-otro-s-stake). Visit for full coverage.*