Laurent Rossi appointed Alpine CEO as Cyril Abiteboul departs Renault

A restructuring within Groupe Renault has seen Laurent Rossi appointed the new Chief Executive Officer of Alpine. The 45 year-old moves from his former role as Group Director of Strategy & Business Development for Groupe Renault to take up the position.

Rossi will report directly to Luca de Meo, the CEO of Renault. Rossi started his career with Renault back in 2000 as an engineer, and after spending nine years in North America working for Boston Consulting Group and then Google, returned to Renault in 2018.

The announcement also confirms that Cyril Abiteboul will depart his role as team principal of the Renault Formula 1 team and leave the French manufacturer altogether. 

Abiteboul was instrumental in Renault’s return to Formula 1 as a full factory outfit in 2016, and has transformed the Enstone based team into one of the strongest of the mid-field teams ahead of its rebranding to Alpine F1 in for the 2021 season. 

Abiteboul said, "I would like to thank the Groupe Renault for having trusted me for many years, particularly with the relaunch and reconstruction of the team since 2016. The solid foundations of the racing team and the entities in France and England built over these years, the strategic evolution of the sport towards a more economically sustainable model, and more recently the Alpine project which provides a renewed sense of meaning and dynamism, all point to a very fine trajectory. I would like to thank Luca De Meo for involving me in the construction of the Alpine Business Unit and I wish the new structure every success.”

Abiteboul’s role as Alpine F1 team principal is expected to be filled by current Renault F1 technical director Marcin Budkowski. Former Suzuki MotoGP team boss Davide Brivio is also expected to be assigned a role within the Alpine F1 team. 

Brivio, who held a senior role within the Yamaha MotoGP team during Valentino Rossi’s four title-winning seasons with the manufacturer, announced his departure from Suzuki at the end of the 2020 season after guiding it to its first riders’ World Championship title since 2000.

Find out what happened when we tested the Alpine A110 S against the BMW M2 CS and Porsche 718 Cayman GTS...