F1 News
Alpine F1 Team open to cooperation with other teams
- GPblog.com
It is common practice for top teams to let up-and-coming talents gain some experience in Formula 1 at customer or sister teams. Ferrari do it at Haas and Alfa Romeo, Red Bull do it at AlphaTauri and Mercedes, of course, has George Russell at Williams. Alpine F1 Team are also interested, as they have several talents in the pipeline through the Renault junior programme.
Emerging talents
Alpine, however, has a somewhat harder time compared to the other teams mentioned. McLaren were their only customer team that has now switched to Mercedes power sources. This makes Alpine the only team in Formula 1 with Renault engines and makes it more difficult to transfer talents to other teams. This can normally be part of an engine deal, which the team no longer has.
Ways to work together
It is difficult, says Alpine Academy director Mia Sharizman to Autsport.com. But they do believe there are ways to work with other teams without a direct commitment. "Without a power unit supply or without any connections, there can still be a collaboration between other teams. I won't divulge too much into it."
"But having said that, we focus on what we have, we focus on the two race seats that we have, the academy that we have, and the tools that we have. Obviously, going into our team is the priority. But we believe that there is still room for collaboration with other teams, irrespective of the power unit supply."
Alpine is at least optimistic, but of course, the question is to what extent other teams are open to this. The fact remains that several teams already have their own 'club' of partners and the situation that Renault does not supply power sources to anyone seems to complicate things somewhat. Besides, Alonso has a contract for this year and next year, so one seat is taken. Ocon only has a contract until the end of this year, so that could be a seat that becomes vacant for newcomers.