Alpine’s 2024 accounts reveal £14.6m loss as rebuild gathers pace for 2026 reset
Alpine’s books for 2024 make for stark reading: a £14.6 million loss and a sharp slide in gross profit, despite a late-season rally on track. It’s a reversal from 2023’s £7.8m profit and underlines just how unforgiving the current F1 economy can be when performance dips even slightly.
The numbers, filed in the team’s full-year accounts, show turnover falling to £238.5m (down from £250.0m in 2023) and gross profit dropping from £72.4m to £44.5m. The pinch point? A mix of softer commercial income and prize money paid in arrears that didn’t match the current effort level at Enstone and Viry.
Alpine finished sixth in the Constructors’ Championship in 2023 and again in 2024, rescued in part by that wild double podium at Interlagos. But the money lagged behind. Payments across the 2024 season were tied to the previous year’s result, and compared to 2023—when distributions reflected a prior fourth place—the team took an almost 13% hit in prize money year-on-year. That alone can wipe out headroom in an operation braced tightly against the cost cap.
“The team endured a tough start to the 2024 season with weakened on-track performance,” wrote Duncan Minto—then a team director and now Renault Group CEO—in the accounts. “Following performance upgrades across the year and changes to senior management, the team had a strong second half of the season with a double podium finish at the São Paulo Grand Prix and ended the year by consolidating 6th place in the Constructors’ Championship.”
The forward look is equally delicate. If Alpine can’t improve its position this year, external estimates suggest its share of F1’s prize fund could shrink further — particularly if the pot is split among more entrants. One projection pegs a potential swing from roughly £67m to around £47m, though that remains dependent on F1’s wider commercial performance in 2025 and 2026 and how the eventual team grid settles.
What’s clear is the project is mid-transformation. Alpine is preparing to shelve its works power unit and become a customer team from 2026, taking Mercedes engines under the new regulations. It’s a bold break with heritage for Renault’s racing arm, but it removes an expensive, complex pillar from the balance sheet and lets Enstone zero in on chassis and operations.
There’s been a hard reset in leadership, too. Steve Nielsen returned to Enstone last month as managing director, a move that reunites the team with a figure steeped in its most efficient era, while Flavio Briatore continues as executive advisor on behalf of new Renault Group CEO Minto. Nielsen has been blunt about priorities: the car comes first.
“We have got great facilities, but the product we’ve put on the track doesn’t reflect the effort of the people here, and the facilities we have here,” he said in a team video. “My top priority is to make sure that Enstone produce the best car we can. You have to have an eye on the future. You have to sacrifice short-term success and invest in the future, and we’re going through that at the moment.”
On track in 2025, progress remains uneven. Alpine has gathered 20 points from the opening 17 rounds, all courtesy of Pierre Gasly, who’s recommitted his future to the team. The other seat is fluid. Franco Colapinto currently occupies it, but the team is asking for more; Paul Aron is hovering, highly rated and patient, while Jack Doohan remains on the roster after being dropped earlier in the year following six starts.
Put another way: the sporting side needs to become less volatile, and soon. Every point matters when it comes to prize money and sponsor leverage. Every upgrade needs to stick. And every decision between now and the winter has to walk the line between scoring now and setting the table for the 2026 chassis-PU reset.
The 2024 loss doesn’t spell crisis so much as it frames the task. Alpine has the facilities, it’s adding experience in the corridors, and it’s about to shed one of its most capital-intensive burdens in the power unit. But to make the balance sheet sing again, Enstone will need to turn that into a car that consistently fights for the top of the midfield and occasionally punches higher.
They’ve done it before. Now they need to make it repeatable.
