Former F1 owner Jordan on Alpine investment: 'Preposterous, ridiculous'

It was revealed this week that Alpine has raised some 200 million euros in investment. Eddie Jordan does not understand why so much money was paid for 24 per cent of the French brand's shares.

Is there a bigger thing behind it?

The former F1 team owner reveals to GB News, "I won't use the word fake news, but I mean, there's absolutely no way from an accounting point of view - the financial model doesn't stack up. That's number one." Jordan does not believe the investors were willing to put down so much money for their stake in Alpine.

Jordan suspects that Reynolds and McElhenney, two actors who are among the investors, were in on the act. "The two people you mentioned [Reynolds and McElhenney], hugely big stars and a huge addition particularly for the American market, which is probably where Renault was trying to look forward to. They're not probably putting a lot of their own money into this. I would say that the real people behind it in the States who have taken this investment, they're using these two stars." According to Jordan, Alpine hopes to use the public image of Reynolds and McElhenney to their advantage.

Alpine shares expensive, according to Jordan

Otro Capital, RedBird Capital Partners and Maximum Effort Investments (led by Reynolds), thanks to an investment of around 200 million euros combined, the three of them now own 24 per cent of Alpine. The French brand itself reveals that Alpine Racing Ltd is valued at 825 million euros after this partial takeover.

Jordan calls that "ridiculous". "I find that in itself kind of strange to value something of that level at a gross value of £700m pounds. It's preposterous. It's ridiculous", the 75-year-old Irishman said. "What does that mean for the value of people like Ferrari or Mercedes or a Red Bull for example? That is what I consider to be the value of those teams. Alpine - it's just not even close to that yet.”