The Italian producer’s title sponsorship take care of the Sauber crew got here to an finish ultimately weekend’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, following a profitable six years collectively.
And whereas Alfa Romeo was linked with a attainable tie-up with Haas as a substitute, and did communicate to the American-owned outfit, negotiations by no means received very far.
Now, Alfa Romeo CEO Jean-Philippe Imparato has defined to Motorsport.com that, together with his firm decided to stay in motorsport, a transfer to WEC is now the most definitely route.
Requested concerning the Haas state of affairs and why issues didn’t progress, Imparato mentioned: “We weren’t focused on aiming to do a duplicate/paste operation within the fashion of the one achieved with Sauber.
“It will have led us to turn out to be a type of who places stickers on bodywork. It will not have been new and we would not have been a part of a narrative.
“We began taking a look at one thing else, shortly reaching a conclusion. Alfa Romeo has nothing to do with the world of rallying, the Stellantis group already has two manufacturers concerned in System E, and so the main focus has shifted to the WEC, a world through which Alfa Romeo has lived previously fantastic experiences.”
Picture by: Ferrari
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Imparato has defined that no last choice has been made about how Alfa Romeo would make its step into WEC although, because it was presently evaluating essentially the most cost-efficient manner of doing it.
“The WEC world is experiencing a second of nice curiosity, and when there may be loads of euphoria it turns into obscure what degree of funding is important to purpose for the best targets,” he mentioned.
“We noticed in 2015 [in LMP1] that uncontrolled price escalation finally rebounds, so we took a while to know how this can all play out.
“I imagine it’s right to have a transparent image and know exactly what you might be going through earlier than launching right into a challenge.”
One chance may very well be to tie-up with Peugeot, which is a part of the identical Stellantis group.
“Clearly it is one of many eventualities we evaluated,” added Imparato
“There are already homes throughout the Stellantis group whose sports activities programmes are in shut contact, for instance DS and Maserati in System E.
“After we return to the monitor we’ll achieve this with the help of Stellantis’ motorsport initiatives, and as Peugeot is already current within the WEC clearly co-operation is greater than attainable. Then maybe the 2 initiatives might have parallel paths in different facets, however ultimately we’re in the identical household.
“Nonetheless, I wish to make clear that for the time being we’re not but capable of affirm something. We are going to achieve this when we’ve accomplished the planning and analysis of the funding”.
Though Alfa Romeo’s F1 sponsorship with Sauber was compelled to finish early due to the crew’s takeover by Audi, Imparato mentioned he had no regrets about their a few years collectively – as he mentioned the return on funding was unbelievable.
“I might say [it was] one of the best funding in historical past,” he mentioned. “We are able to say that by way of picture return, for each euro we spent we obtained 20 again.
“On the similar time, we’re just a little unhappy as a result of we’re leaving a crew that has embraced our model for six years, and with which we’ve had a unprecedented relationship.”