Suzuki MotoGP boss linked with Alpine move

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Davide Brivio

Davide Brivio

Davide Brivio, the manager of Suzuki’s MotoGP team, has been linked with a move to Renault’s rebranded F1 team, Alpine.

After 17 years in the category, Suzuki finally won the Constructors’ Championship for the first time in 2020, and Brivio has been widely credited for playing a considerable part in such success.

Prior to joining the Japanese team, the Italian worked at Yamaha and saw them win multiple World Championships while he was there.

His time in MotoGP may now be at an end though, with Autosport claiming that sources have indicated that a move to Alpine is in the works.

The team previously known as Renault is undergoing a rebrand for the 2020 season, and the name and colour scheme won’t be the only thing to change.

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Cyril Abiteboul
Cyril Abiteboul

Cyril Abiteboul, the team principal, is the man tasked with managing the Apline brand as a whole, and he has previously refused to commit to staying in his current role in the future.

“The exact situation is that I have been asked by the CEO Luca de Meo to take as an extra mission the structuring of Alpine as a car company, as a brand but not just a brand inside of things but what’s the product strategy, what’s the business model within the context of Renault Group changing massively of organisation, and also strategy, given the overall situation,” he said at the Russian Grand Prix.

“It’s a mission which I started, which I will have in hand in a couple of weeks and part of the deliverable of that mission will see obviously some proposals in terms of structure that I absolutely do not want to comment on here and now.

“What I can tell you is that I remain in the context of that mission until the end of this year fully committed in my role as team principal.”

Executive director Marcin Budkowski has been linked with replacing Abiteboul as team principal should the Frenchman indeed vacate his role. If so, Brivio could well fill the gap left by Budkowski.

This is made all the more likely by the fact that he and Renault CEO Luca de Meo have previously worked together at Yamaha in MotoGP.

When asked about the rumours by Autosport, Renault opted not to comment.

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