Business of Speed Podcast - Briatore and de Meo Bring Gucci to Alpine F1 for $150M

Episode Date: May 27, 2026

Alpine just sold its F1 title sponsorship to Gucci for a reported $150 million across three seasons. From 2027, the team will race as the Gucci Racing Alpine Formula One Team in Gucci's colors, ending BWT's five-year pink era.Vincenzo and Lali break down what the deal actually buys: the Briatore and de Meo reunion that made it happen, why Kering's first F1 title partnership lands now with Alpine sitting fifth in the constructors, what 24 races a year as a Gucci runway means for the brand, and whether Alpine is quietly trading on-track ambition for lifestyle leverage.Discussed in this micro episode:The Briatore, de Meo, and Bellettini negotiationGucci Racing as a platform with its own logo and roadmap, well past a sticker on a sidepodF1's luxury build-up: Gucci on Alpine, Louis Vuitton on the trophyAlpine's valuation curve and the private equity interest circling EnstoneCapsule collection potential at every Grand PrixWhether the Mercedes power unit and a P5 start change the read on this dealHosted by Vincenzo Landino and Lali Michelsen.

Welcome back to Business of Speed. We have a business topic today. Quite the business topic today. Lali, buongiorno. You know what I'm talking about. You're laughing because you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's the big news of the day. I know because it's such a complicated name. Gucci Racing, Alpine Formula One team. It's a little bit true. Gucci gang, Gucci gang, Gucci gang, Gucci gang. That's all I thought about. that's all i could think about that stupid song by lil pump or whatever his name was

i gotta hear i gotta what are we feeling what do we what do we think i mean all the first thing i thought of was italian fashion house with the team from enstone run by flavio briatore like is this 1993 good one that's a good thought actually that's a good thought what i thought was like you evil genius mastermind flavio briatore you brought your friend luca de mayo who used to run Renault to remind people he's the one who made Renault in like changed the name into Alpine he was the guy who brought back Flavio into Alpine and gave him full autonomy from what we hear he has full autonomy and now they sort of they come back together and they mastermind this wonderful deal but it just seems like like a very sort of illuminati kind of thing that just

happened there and I'm also thinking is this and I want to throw this back to you is this Alpine a little bit giving up, at least for now, on actually winning on the track. And now they just want to win in lifestyle, as a brand, as an entertainment platform. I'm going to propose that question to you. I think there has been so much turmoil shareholders-wise. There was rumors that Horner wanted to buy in, Toto wanted to, or Mercedes, or Toto, whoever, someone wanted to buy And in all of the conversations I've had with private equity folks, Alpine is always brought up as the brand that people are trying to buy into or go after. So that's never a good thing. I think this offers a lot of stability.

This says, hey, we do want to put something on track that's decent, but we might as well play the game that Formula One is laying out for us, which is to become a media house, to become an entertainment factory, to become, I mean, quite frankly, this deal is going to put Gucci, it's going to provide a runway every race, 24, they're going to have 24 runways all around the world. I mean, they're going to be outfitting them everything, you know, the team outfits, the team gear. It's a big deal. It's a big, you know, it's a big deal. But I do think it's a good deal for Alpine. They need the stability. They've already got all the celebrity backers, you know, with some investments that came in earlier, Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelsey and Ryan Reynolds and that, those groups, they're all involved.

So now you add some high power brands with the high power celebrities. And let's, can we talk, I mean, you can talk about this, but on track, they've looked good this year with the Mercedes power unit. to be quite frank it's there that we we've seen them really sort of outperform what we thought they would achieve on track for me they're the best of the rest of of you know once once you get out you you put outside a Mercedes and McLaren and Ferrari and Red Bull then they are for sure the best of the rest by far and I also I think I love that that finally we have a luxury fashion house in F1 it was about time we've you referenced earlier when we just started talking Benetton of course is who Vincenzo was referencing but we've also had Tommy Hilfiger and we have we've had

Hugo Boss but this is the first super luxury fashion house that has entered so I love that and to your point they're entering at a great time when the team is actually doing great on track or to the best of their ability great for them let's just say great for them and it's only probably going to get better. They're going to get the valuation of the team is just going to go up and up and up, which is obviously I think the play right now is to get that valuation of that team up. And it can only be good, right? The people that are watching F1 right now come from all aspects of life. There's a lot of ultra high net worth individuals, but also Gucci is a brand that is aspirational, but also doable for some people, right? So all in all, I think it's a win. I love

what you said 24 runways i love that we're gonna see alpine and i and in fact i hope they have little micro micro collections for every grand prix that would be amazing the capsule the monaco capsule the spa capsule the miami capsule i'd love to see something like that this is this is good for everybody involved this is very interesting for gucci because you're going to go up on a podium and be given a trophy that's adorned in louis vuitton and i yeah it's just very interesting it's just all very it's we haven't had the level of brands that are coming into formula one in a while like this is definitely ramping up and you're seeing bigger and bigger names that are joining and sometimes it's head scratching right like the disney thing was why disney and

now you're starting to see it play out like wow this is there's a lot of ip here that they're throwing around. And Formula One is okay with licensing their name out everywhere. And so why wouldn't these brands want to get involved? Why wouldn't these brands want to take advantage of that? And who knows how long this is going to last, this upswing, right? And so it's a three-year deal. I think a three-year deal is a perfect, let's taste it and see if it's any good. No harm, no foul. It's 150 million. Yes, it's a lot of money, but they're going to have to really, like you said, they're going to have to execute on that. They're going to have to do something with it. They're not just going to slap their name on it. And I don't think they're going to,

right? Like no fashion house is just going to slap their name on it and be okay with, okay, whatever happens, like they're going to be very involved and that'll be fun to see. I'm, I'm excited. This is a good, this is a good piece of news for Alpine team and for the brand itself. I think it works always. Amazing. This was one of our micro episodes of the business speed podcast. We would love to hear what you think about the news and what you think about our micro episodes leave a comment wherever you're watching this if you can or leave a review five stars and uh we would be grateful for that you laugh at me but i tell you you gotta ask the people the people need to know it's true it's true ciao ciao for now we'll talk to you in the next one