Flavio Briatore, Alpine’s senior advisor, stresses that the team is not for sale and that he has no plans to cut jobs at the British site.

The 74-year-old former Renault team boss, who was brought in to stop Alpine’s slide, said: “One thing is absolutely clear. Nothing is for sale.”

“(Renault boss) Luca de Meo does not want to sell the team. Question finito.”

Briatore said in his first press conference since joining Alpine at the Dutch Grand Prix that his “realistic” goal was for the team to “win some podiums in 2027”.

He also said the team’s UK base in Enstone “didn’t need that many people”.

When asked if that meant he wanted to cut jobs, he replied: “I don’t want to cut jobs. We need efficiency. We need people with a lot of experience. I don’t want to lay anyone off.”

Briatore also stressed that the closure of Renault’s Formula 1 engine plant in Viry-Chatillon, near Paris, was not his idea. This decision is currently being examined by Renault’s board of directors and is expected to be made next month.

“I’m not always the bad guy,” said Briatore. “You can blame me for everything else, but not this.”

Renault, Alpine’s parent company, is deciding whether to abandon its F1 engine program, launched in 1977, and transform the team into a customer company that will buy Mercedes engines from 2026.

Briatore explained why this option was considered: “The problem is the evidence. But whatever our chairman decides is fine with me.”

His comments refer to the fact that Renault has lagged behind its rival powertrain manufacturers since the introduction of hybrid engines in Formula 1 in 2014.

And he pointed to McLaren’s success this season as proof that a team does not need to be attached to a car manufacturer’s factory engine program to be competitive.

On Friday, an Alpine human resources committee sent an email to some media outlets expressing its opposition to the plans to close Viry.

The company stressed that the program to develop the engine for the new F1 rules, which will come into force in 2026, is well advanced and the results are “promising”.

It said that only 20% of the Alpine team’s current performance deficit compared to the top was due to the engine and the rest to the chassis – designed in Enstone, Great Britain.

The email said the UK plant was “struggling to consolidate its structure in the face of several changes of direction”.

This is a reference to the series of major management changes at Alpine over the past year, which saw a CEO and two team principals sacked, and a number of other senior figures either fired or left the company.

Briatore admitted that Alpine’s “problem was not management – they chose some bad managers.”

Last month, Briton Oliver Oakes was appointed as the new team boss and his predecessor Bruno Famin returned to his job in Viry.

Briatore said Oakes was “enthusiastic, young and ambitious – he has no experience (in F1) but he has the talent to succeed”.

Oakes was hired after a series of interviews, Briatore said, that convinced him he was the right man for the job.

Oakes said he has described Briatore’s influence on the team since his appointment as the “Flavio Tornado.”

Oakes, for whom this is his first job in Formula 1 after managing the Hitech team in the junior categories, said: “Enstone has been poorly managed for a number of years. We need to get our focus back on racing.”

Briatore said: “We have to clean the house. The house has to be clean so that everyone can work together. We have to motivate everyone.”