Mercedes pulls out of talks to buy Alpine stake

Mercedes pulled out of talks to buy a minority shareholding in the Alpine team because they felt it was too expensive.

The German car company and its F1 boss Toto Wolff agreed in principle to buy a 24% stake in their team with Alpine owners Renault, which is owned by investment group Otro Capital.

But Otro was demanding prices above market value from Mercedes and the deal fell through.

Insiders told the BBC Sport Otro wanted $720m (£536m) for its shareholding, a figure that would value the team at $3bn (£2.2bn).

Another paid 200m euros (£171m) for its shares in June 2023.

A Renault source said: “We understand that negotiations have stopped.”

Both Mercedes and Wolff were contacted for comment, but were unavailable.

Mercedes considers a fair valuation of $2.2-2.4bn (£1.6-1.8bn) for the Alpine, the sources said, based on normal methods for valuing a company. When it’s loss-making, like Alpine, it’s based on revenue multiples.

Other recent deals involving F1 team ownership have been seen Mercedes is worth £4.6 billion And World champion McLaren at 3.5 billion pounds.

Both of these teams are profitable, and considerably more successful than Alpine, which finished fifth in the Constructors’ Championship after five races this season, in 2025.

Other parties interested in buying the Otro shareholding included a group of investors linked to former Red Bull team principal Christian Horner, as well as several private equity groups.

However, Renault has reportedly decided not to discuss the matter any further.

Until September Renault had veto power over any sale of Otro shares and used it to block any sale to a group with links to Horner.

Alpine this week landed a major headline sponsorship deal with luxury goods brand Gucci.

It was landed by executive adviser Flavio Briatore, former CEO of Renault, who is now CEO of Gucci owner Kering, through his connections with Luca Di Meo.

Mercedes’ interest in a shareholding in Alpine was founded on the concept of a long-term engine supply and the benefits of various economies of scale arising from such links.

Mercedes plans to reduce the number of customer teams in F1 to two by 2031 thanks to new engine regulations.

Mercedes currently supplies world champions McLaren, Williams and Alpine, one of whom will have to find new engine supplies if the plan goes ahead.

Williams follows their longest customer, McLaren, while Alpine has only taken a Mercedes supply since this year.