Luca de Meo: "We have a greater capacity to attract than two or three years ago"

What goals are you aiming for with Alpine this season ?

In this world, one should always avoid F1, to give ourselves precise deadlines, because reality can quickly catch up with you. We will see from the Australian GP if we have managed to do a relatively better job compared to other teams. We are not going to stop developing the 2025 car. I think that there are some teams that are forced to switch to 2026, but we have chosen to continue as much as possible, because we still have room for manoeuvre on our concept. Like in recent years, we have not fully exploited the potential of the concept, and this winter we potentially had a little more room in terms of development. These are somewhat special seasons, the end of the technical cycle, because if you are a small team, you are not able to develop the 2025 and 2026 cars at the same time, but we are still a big team, so we will be able to manage both.

You are coming out of a difficult season, what has changed?

Why a difficult season? We started like this, but in the end, it was not bad. So finally, we extracted the maximum potential of the team. The challenge is to continue to improve structurally the organization. That's what we are doing, but it takes time. That's a bit of a lesson I've learned in recent years.

The organization chart has indeed changed a lot in recent years...

Sometimes there were one or two moves that were maybe not as positive as we would have hoped, but you can always make mistakes in organisations until you find the right composition. I think we are on a good trajectory, in a different mindset than a year ago. I felt it when I spoke to the team. They are calm, motivated, under pressure of course, but everything is more square. Oliver Oakes (main team. Ed.) is doing a very good job, David Sanchez (technical director. Ed.) has already understood the car well and I don't think there are people who know Formula 1 better than Flavio Briatore. We may have found the right combination, even if the team will continue to evolve. We have a more credible project and a greater capacity to attract than two or three years ago.

With the engine off Renault à Viruses-Châtillon, at the end of the year, will we still be able to say thatAlpine is a French stable in 2026?

We remain a French team, of course. History has led us in this direction, but if we could find French talent, French sponsors too, we would do it (in engine in France. Ed.), but we can't find any. We have to look for opportunities elsewhere (in Classic Mercedes for sale. Ed.). But we always consider Alpine as the French national team in Formula 1.

Interview by Cyprien Juilhard, in London.