Toto Wolff has said he would welcome something of a Formula One supergroup returning to the sport in the form of Christian Horner, Bernie Ecclestone and Flavio Briatore potentially uniting to buy the Alpine team.
When asked at the Dutch Grand Prix what he thought of the concept, albeit a somewhat unlikely proposition despite rumours persisting that Horner is interested in purchasing Alpine if he can obtain the substantial financial backing required, the Mercedes principal was all in favour.
“If there was such an exciting project, these three guys coming together, all of the mafia reunited, that would give good content. The shark mafia. Three sharks,” Wolff said.
Horner was recently sacked by his Red Bull team and Ecclestone, F1’s long-term ringmaster and chief executive, has not been directly involved since Liberty media took over the sport in 2017. Briatore is executive adviser to the Alpine team and close friends with Ecclestone and Horner.
“That would be an exciting story and would create lots of buzz around Formula One,” Wolff added. “ I think we need that and Formula One has always been about the best racing with exciting drivers and great personalities. When you look back at the grand era of team owners and team principals around Frank Williams and Ron Dennis, Flavio, Luca di Montezemolo – maybe we need to work on that.”
On track in first practice at Zandvoort, McLaren maintained their hold on the front of the field with Lando Norris just having the edge over his teammate Oscar Piastri by two-tenths of a second, on a blustery, chilly day on the North Sea coast. Rain repeatedly swept across the circuit, weather that is expected to remain over the weekend including on Sundaytomorrow, and may yet play its part in the race.
Red Bull’s struggles remained all too clear at Max Verstappen’s home circuit, where he has traditionally been so strong, with three wins from the past four races. The Dutchman managed only sixth in first practice, almost a second off Norris and he also slid off track as the session closed.
In the afternoon session, with running limited due to crashes by Lance Stroll and Alex Albon, Norris was again on top, eight-hundredths in front of Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, with Piastri third, Verstappen fifth and Lewis Hamilton in sixth.