Alpine F1 announces Brivio as new racing director

The Alpine F1 Team has announced that former Suzuki MotoGP team boss Davide Brivio has been appointed as the rebranded squad's racing director for 2021.

Brivio will report to Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi, following the departure of the former Renault team’s managing director Cyril Abiteboul with immediate effect last week.

Current executive director Marcin Budkowski is still expected to take over Abiteboul’s position as team principal in due course.

Read also: Abiteboul to depart Renault with immediate effect!

A statement from the team said that Brivio's specific role and responsibilities will be announced in the coming weeks.

"We look forward to welcoming Davide as we start the next stage of our Formula 1 journey," the statement said, adding that "Brivio will strengthen its team" heading nto the 2021 season.

With 20 years experience in MotoGP, Brivio is best known for taking charge of Suzuki's return to the championship in 2014 which culminated with the team's first MotoGP title i 20 years as well as the riders championships with Joan Mir.

Suzuki announced his departure earlier this month. “A new professional challenge and opportunity suddenly came to me and in the end I decided to take it," Brivio said at the time. “It has been a difficult decision."

Prior to joining Suzuki Brivio had been in charge of Yamaha where he was an influential figure in convincing Valentino Rossi to sign for the team.

As well as rebranding from Renault to Alpine for 2021, the team is adopting a brand new livery and has signed up two-time world champion Fernando Alonso to return to F1 alongside Esteban Ocon.

It's thought that Renault CEO Luca de Meo is behind the push to reinvigorate the team. He and Brivio got to know each other at Yamaha where de Meo acted as title sponsor Fiat's chief marketing officer.

"We need to simplify the chain of command," de Meo said recently. "We need to have responsibilities for the different parts."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.