BEFORE his return to Formula One in June of last year as an executive adviser to Alpine, Flavio Briatore made a vow to Luca de Meo, the chief executive of the Renault Group.

“I promised Luca that in two, three years, the team would be on the podium, or very close to the podium,” Briatore said in an interview in May. “That was only nine months ago.”

To de Meo and Renault, Alpine is the family jewel, and Briatore, 75, is charged with restoring the team’s lustre.

“I’d been in contact with Luca,” Briatore said about his initial return to the team.

“One day we were talking, and he was desperate because the team were last in the table,” referring to the constructors’ championship.

“I said to him that under the right conditions, then maybe I’d come back to help, just as a consultant, for six or seven Grands Prix, nothing like the role is now,” he added. “It was something completely different to what it is now.”

After 14 years out of Formula One, Briatore, who had vowed to never return, indeed came back.

He had been banned from the sport when he was the team principal of Renault because of the “Crashgate” scandal, in which the Renault driver Nelson Piquet Jr. deliberately crashed at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix to bring out a safety car that would help his teammate, Fernando Alonso, win the race. The ban was eventually overturned by a French court.

Briatore taking a selfie with former MotoGP rider and compatriot Valentino Rossi at the Enzo and Dino Ferrari racetrack in Imola, Italy, on May 18. — AP

“I had possibilities to come back immediately, but they weren’t right,” Briatore said. “I wanted to stop anyway, maybe not in that way, but it was time to finish. I’d won seven championships, and Formula One is very demanding.”

As team principal of Benetton, Briatore guided Michael Schumacher to the first two of his seven drivers’ titles in 1994 and 1995. The team won the constructors’ championship in 1995.

In 2005 and 2006, with Renault, Briatore led Alonso and the team to the drivers’ and constructors’ championships.

After leaving Formula One, Briatore, an Italian entrepreneur, focused on his businesses in the food and beverage industry. He said he had had “one or two proposals” to return, but “nothing very exciting” until his conversations with de Meo.

Briatore is back with the team for the third time.

“In a few months, we have done a lot for the organisation,” he said. “We’ve changed the commercial side, the marketing side, and we’ve brought in two or three very important sponsors.

“We’ve changed a lot of people on the technical side. I would say the team is now 85% complete. We’re still missing key people to make us stronger next year, but I know who they are.”

Briatore said that the mood inside the team had changed since his arrival as adviser and that the people were more motivated.

Alpine’s Pierre Gasly in action as spectators on yachts look on during practice for the Monaco Grand Prix. — Reuters

After six Grands Prix, Alpine have scored points once, a seventh place from Pierre Gasly in Bahrain, and are currently bottom in the 10-team constructors’ championship.

Gasly said Briatore had “brought a lot of good to the team.”

“Formula One is not a sport where things change over two, three months,” he said.

“We need time, but he is clearly pushing everybody in the right direction, in a very impressive way, trying to get the maximum out of every department, and trying hard to put the team in a better place.”

Jack Doohan, who was replace by Franco Colapinto with the team deciding to “rotate” the race seat alongside Gasly, said Briatore was “an icon” and “someone I’ve looked up to for a very, very long time.”

“I love his brutal, to-the-point nature,” he said, adding there’s “no mucking around.” “You find out what’s going on very, very quickly. “

Briatore agreed.

“You need to tell the truth,” he said. “I don’t have time to massage people’s egos, so I’m very straight with everybody.

“No politics. Not in my team. This is most important.”

Gasly, who finished eighth at last week’s Spanish Grand Prix, is the only driver to score points for Alpine. — AP

Doohan will remain with Alpine as a test and reserve driver through the evaluation period ahead of 2026, when the team change their engine supplier.

That means Renault will not be involved in Formula One for the first time since 1988. Alpine will use Mercedes power units in 2026.

“It was a very hard decision,” Briatore said. “But if you want to compete at the highest level, whatever your business, you need to be at the same pace as everybody else.”

In the team’s various guises over the years, as Renault, Lotus and Alpine, they have not been champions since 2006. In 96 Grands Prix since the team rebranded as Alpine in 2021, they have won one race and scored five additional podium finishes.

Briatore said that with the changes being made, it would be champion again: “Why not? Sure. If you see the teams in front of us, they’re nothing special. It’s only people, more committed, less distracted.” — NYT