Mercedes, Toto Wolff, Christian Horner, and the Alpine F1 stake: what's actually going on

Flavio Briatore gave a characteristically breezy answer when asked about potential investors in the Alpine Formula 1 team at the Friday press conference in Shanghai.

The Italian said there are three or four interested parties, and that they are looking to buy the stake in the team which Alpine doesn’t own.

He clarified it’s Mercedes, and not its team boss Toto Wolff, as was initially suggested, that is in talks over the potential deal.

“Every day is a new situation. I don’t know what is the latest one, but what I say is that I know it’s a negotiation with Mercedes, not with Toto,” Briatore said.

That relaxed framing somewhat undersells what is actually a significant and unresolved situation around one of Formula 1’s more interesting teams.

It involves a 24% share of Alpine, which was purchased by private equity firm Otro Capital for €200 million (£172m) in 2023 and is now estimated to be worth somewhere in the region of $588 million (£443m). Renault retains a controlling 76% interest in the team.

Otro Capital’s Alpine investment came backed by a consortium including actor Ryan Reynolds, golf player Rory McIlroy, and NFL stars Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce. Its investment has attracted a queue of interested parties, leading to plenty of intrigue.

The bet, at the time, was that Formula 1 team valuations would continue to rise. That gamble has emphatically paid off.

Alpine is now valued at between €2bn-€2.5bn (£1.7bn-£2.2bn), more than double the price that Otro paid three years ago. For the private equity firm, that is likely to represent a straightforward opportunity to lock in a substantial profit. The question is who will be the buyer.

The first name to emerge publicly was Christian Horner.

Sacked by Red Bull in July 2025 after more than two decades leading the team, Horner had made clear he intended to return to F1 in a more senior ownership capacity rather than a conventional team principal role.

Alpine made sense on multiple levels: it is based in Oxfordshire, close to where he lives; he has a longstanding personal relationship with Briatore; and a minority stake in a midfield team was a realistic entry point for a returning figure who wanted influence without the operational grind he’d just left behind.

Alpine confirmed in January that Horner’s consortium — which has been reported to include MSP Sports Capital, a firm with prior Formula 1 experience through a previous stake in McLaren — was one of the interested parties.

Talks were understood to have reached an advanced stage. Then, around the Australian Grand Prix weekend, a new bidder emerged.

The Telegraph reported that Mercedes was evaluating an acquisition of Otro’s stake, with Wolff understood to be across the process.

The story landed as a Horner-versus-Wolff narrative, setting a new stage for one of F1’s most enduring off-track rivalries. The reality, as has since become clearer, is more nuanced.

Mercedes, not Wolff

Briatore’s phrasing in Shanghai — “negotiations with Mercedes, not with Toto” — reflects an important distinction.

This is a corporate initiative from the Mercedes Formula 1 team, although Wolff does own more than a quarter of it. The rest is split between Mercedes, INEOS and software tycoon George Kurtz.

Mercedes confirmed as much in a carefully worded statement, describing itself as “a key strategic partner of Alpine” that is “being kept apprised of the latest developments” — language that suggests evaluation rather than active pursuit.

The strategic logic from Mercedes’ perspective is multilayered. The power unit and transmission supply deal with Alpine runs until 2030. A shareholding would deepen that relationship and give Mercedes a financial stake in Alpine’s competitive path.

There is also, in the broader picture, a Red Bull precedent: owning equity in a customer or sister team has proved a powerful structural advantage.

Whether Mercedes sees Alpine in that light, as a potential junior programme rather than merely a customer, is the more speculative question, and one that Renault, as the 76% majority shareholder, would have a significant say in answering.

Crucially, Renault holds the right of first refusal on the Otro stake and must approve any new investor. That veto power means that whoever eventually acquires the shares does so on Renault’s terms.

What’s clear is that Mercedes’ emergence has complicated Horner’s path, but the story has not ended. Briatore confirmed in Shanghai that multiple parties remain in the running – but it is no longer the straightforward return narrative it appeared to be in January.

The governance question

The issue that received the least satisfying answer in Shanghai is also arguably the most important one.

If Mercedes acquires a stake in Alpine, it would simultaneously be a power unit supplier to that team, a constructor competing against it, and a part-owner of it.

Could a Mercedes shareholding influence how Alpine votes in the F1 Commission, which decides on sporting and technical regulation changes, and is made up of teams, engine suppliers, F1 and the FIA?