Former Mercedes design boss Elliott joins Alpine
Former Mercedes design boss Elliott joins Alpine. Former Mercedes F1 design boss Mike Elliott joins Alpine as chief technical officer.
What happened
Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Elliott joins Alpine after leaving Mercedes three years agoByAndrew BensonF1 CorrespondentPublished2 hours agoFormer Mercedes Formula 1 design boss Mike Elliott has joined Alpine as chief technical officer. Elliott, whose career in F1 started at McLaren in 2000, left Mercedes under something of a cloud in October 2023, after the design philosophy the team pursued under his leadership for the 'ground-effect' era from 2022-25 proved a failure. The Alpine role is his first in F1 since leaving Mercedes, and it sees him rejoin forces with Briatore and Nielsen, who were both there during Elliott's first spell with the team.
Elliott's recruitment is the latest step in Alpine's attempt to return to competitiveness after slumping to the back of the field in 2025. Elliott then spent more than a decade at Mercedes through their dominant years with Lewis Hamilton, rising from head of aerodynamics to technical director and then chief technical officer. An Alpine statement said: "Elliott has a proven track record in the sport, having contributed to an impressive eight constructors' and eight drivers' championships.
Although Red Bull dominated the 2022 season with a different design concept, which used heavily undercut side pods to channel airflow used to 'seal' the floor, Mercedes stuck to their guns for 2023, convinced the design could be made to work.
The wider picture
The move was presented by Mercedes as Elliott's own idea, but within six months he had left the company – again, Mercedes said it was Elliott's decision. The move marks a return to the team for Elliott, who was principal aerodynamicist there from 2008-12 when the outfit was known as Renault and then Lotus. "Elliott's arrival at Enstone strengthens the team's technical capabilities as the team looks to build on the improved performances on track and close the gap to the top four teams.
"F1 to have 10 sprint races in 2027, including MonacoPublished1 day agoVerstappen passes 100 amateur karters in 14 lapsPublished6 hours agoElliott takes his place in the team's engineering structure above executive technical director David Sanchez, who joined in May 2024. The statement contained no remarks either from executive adviser Flavio Briatore, the team's de facto boss, or managing director Steve Nielsen, their effective team principal. Elliott will start work at the team's factory in Enstone, Oxfordshire, next week and Briatore and Nielsen will address his hiring publicly at the next race, the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on 24-26 September.
Eliott had taken on the role of technical director from the highly regarded James Allison and led work on the 2022 design, with Allison moving into a more senior role overseeing the wider company as chief technical officer. Mercedes followed what became known as a 'zero-pod' concept, where the sidepods were pared back to almost nothing as part of an aerodynamic philosophy that aimed to run the car as close to the ground as possible.
What has been reported
All the teams suffered from this to a degree in early 2022, but Mercedes found it harder than most to get on top of it. When the 2023 car was also off the pace, Elliott swapped roles with Allison. The 52-year-old will "lead and oversee the technical and engineering functions at the team's factory in Enstone", a statement said. In the wind tunnel, it produced prodigious downforce. But the concept was prone to a phenomenon known as 'porpoising', where the airflow stalls under the floor and sets up a high-frequency bouncing motion.
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