Rossi details US investors' contribution to Alpine's F1 plans

Alpine boss Laurent Rossi has shed light on how the Enstone squad will benefit from the equity stake acquired by a group of US investors.

Alpine announced on Monday that Otro Capital, RedBird Capital and Maximum Effort Investments had collectively acquired a 24% stake in the F1 team, with Hollywood actors and Wrexham Football Club owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney featuring among the group of investors.

Rossi explained how Alpine will leverage the sports and entertainment marketing expertise of its new US shareholders to add value to the team and help drive its business off the track.

"They’re going to help us on the monetisation side of the business,” Rossi explained. “So strictly speaking not on the sports side.

“Obviously, people here [at Enstone] know what they’re doing. People in Viry-Châtillon know what they’re doing. They’re going to continue doing what they’re doing.

“[The investment is] going to help us boost our revenue,” Rossi added. “Hospitality, sponsoring, licensing, merchandising. Above and beyond what we have planned.”

Subsequent revenue generated from those segments will then be reinvested into the team, according to Rossi, and especially into improving Alpine's infrastructure at Enstone.

“A portion of that we will reinvest into facilities, into tools, into equipment,” he said. “This is part of a plan that we already launched way before RedBird joined us, which we call Mountain Climber.

“We are hiring 80 people. So we’re going to simply boost this plan, accelerate it even further, in the limitations of the cost cap obviously.

“So this is how it’s going to help us indirectly continue on our path.”

Read also:

• Jordan: Latest valuation attributed to Alpine 'preposterous'

Last month Rossi publicly criticized Alpine’s efforts in F1, calling out its crews for their “amateurish” approach and poor execution on race weekends.

Since however, the team has stepped up its performance, with Esteban Ocon securing a remarkable podium finish in Monaco while more points were put on the board in Spain and in Canada.

“The team is moving up,” Rossi said.

“Two years ago, we were a distant sixth really. We finished fourth this year. It’s a little bit complicated at the beginning of this season and it’s getting back into order, I hope we can just continue.

“We have a roadmap. It’s progress that you build one step at a time because it takes time to find the people, find the resources to complement our team because our team is slightly smaller than top teams.

“So we’re just going to continue growing, expanding up to a point where we have similar structures.

“The way of doing makes a difference and we believe our way of doing will make a difference because we have expertise here.”

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter