Mercedes is among “three or four potential buyers” for a 24% stake in rival Formula 1 team Alpine, the French team's executive adviser Flavio Briatore said Friday.
Ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix, Briatore said Mercedes was keen on the minority share — held by a private equity firm which has worked with sports stars like Patrick Mahomes — but suggested it wouldn't come with influence over how Alpine is run. He also dismissed reports Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff was in talks to buy the stake on his own behalf.
“Every day is a new situation. I don’t know what is the latest one, but what I say is that I know it’s a negotiation with Mercedes, not with Toto, with Mercedes, and we see. In this moment we have three or four potential buyers,” said Briatore, who has been Alpine's de-facto team boss since last year.
Asked if that could lead to conflict-of-interest concerns about Mercedes — which already supplies Alpine's engines — gaining influence over how it's run or how it votes on future rule changes, Briatore suggested any minority shareholder would be a “passenger” in those talks.
“Normally one company, 75% decide and the 25% is a passenger, and this is the reality,” Briatore said.
Mercedes did not confirm details of any involvement.
“Mercedes is a key strategic partner of Alpine and we are being kept apprised of the latest developments,” the team said in a statement.
Former Red Bull team principal Christian Horner is also among the interested parties, Alpine said last month.
Alpine is majority-owned by French automaker Renault, which sold the 24% stake to a group led by private equity firm Otro Capital, which attracted attention by including sports stars like Mahomes and Travis Kelce and the actor Ryan Reynolds in its investment group.
Alpine is coming off a tough year as it placed last in the constructors' standings in 2025. Pierre Gasly earned the team's first point with 10th in Australia last week but Briatore said he wasn't pleased with the team's progress as F1 begins a new era of regulations.
“We are not happy at all. Our performance was very weak and was a combination of different factors, and we know what is the major problem we have in the car,” he said.
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Alpine team principal Flavio Briatore arrives at the track ahead of the first practice session for the Australian Formula One Grand Prix at Albert Park, in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, March 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Scott Barbour)
Alpine driver Pierre Gasly of France steers his car during the sprint qualifying ahead of the Chinese Formula One Grand Prix, in Shanghai, China, Friday, March 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)
HOUSTON (AP) — Their dramatic grand finale fast approaching, Artemis II’s astronauts aimed for a splashdown in the Pacific on Friday to close out humanity’s first voyage to the moon in more than a half-century.
The tension in Mission Control mounted as the miles melted away between the four returning astronauts and Earth.
All eyes were on the capsule’s life-protecting heat shield that has to withstand thousands of degrees during reentry. On the spacecraft's only other test flight — in 2022, with no one on board — the shield’s charred exterior came back looking as pockmarked as the moon.
Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen were on track to hit the atmosphere traveling Mach 33 — or 33 times the speed of sound — a blistering blur not seen since NASA’s Apollo moonshots of the 1960s and 1970s.
They didn’t plan on taking manual control except in an emergency. Their Orion capsule, dubbed Integrity, is completely self-flying.
Like so many others, lead flight director Jeff Radigan anticipated feeling some of that “irrational fear that is human nature,” especially during the six minutes of communication blackout preceding the opening of the parachutes. The recovery ship USS John P. Murtha awaited the crew's arrival off the coast of San Diego, along with a squadron of military planes and helicopters.
The last time NASA and the Defense Department teamed up for a lunar crew's reentry was Apollo 17 in 1972. Artemis II was projected to come screaming back at 36,170 feet (11,025 meters) per second — or 24,661 mph (39,668 kph) — just shy of the record before slowing to a 19 mph (30 kph) splashdown.
Launched from Florida on April 1, the astronauts racked up one win after another as they deftly navigated NASA’s long-awaited lunar comeback, the first major step in establishing a sustainable moon base.
Artemis II didn't land on the moon or even orbit it. But it broke Apollo 13's distance record and marked the farthest that humans have ever journeyed from Earth when the crew reached 252,756 miles (406,771 kilometers). Then in the mission's most heart-tugging scene, the teary astronauts asked permission to name a pair of craters after their moonship and Wiseman's late wife, Carroll.
During Monday's record-breaking flyby, they documented scenes of the moon's far side never seen before by the human eye along with a total solar eclipse. The eclipse, in particular, “just blew all of us away,” Glover said.
Their sense of wonder and love awed everyone, as did their breathtaking pictures of the moon and Earth. The Artemis II crew channeled Apollo 8's first lunar explorers with Earthset, showing our Blue Marble setting behind the gray moon. It was reminiscent of Apollo 8’s famous Earthrise shot from 1968.
“It just makes you want to continue to go back,” Radigan said on the eve of splashdown. “It's the first of many trips and we just need to continue on because there’s so much” more to learn about the moon.
Their moonshot drew global attention as well as star power, earning props from President Donald Trump; Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney; Britain's King Charles III; Ryan Gosling, star of the latest space flick “Project Hail Mary”; Scarlett Johansson of the Marvel Cinematic Universe; and even Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner of TV’s original “Star Trek.”
Despite its rich scientific yield, the nearly 10-day flight was not without technical issues. Both the capsule’s drinking water and propellant systems were hit with valve problems. In perhaps the most high-profile predicament, the toilet kept malfunctioning, but the astronauts shrugged it all off.
“We can’t explore deeper unless we are doing a few things that are inconvenient,” Koch said, “unless we’re making a few sacrifices, unless we’re taking a few risks, and those things are all worth it.”
Added Hansen: “You do a lot of testing on the ground, but your final test is when you get this hardware to space and it’s a doozy.”
Under the revamped Artemis program, next year’s Artemis III will see astronauts practice docking their capsule with a lunar lander or two in orbit around Earth. Artemis IV will attempt to land a crew of two near the moon’s south pole in 2028.
The Artemis II astronauts' allegiance was to those future crews, Wiseman said.
“But we really hoped in our soul is that we could for just for a moment have the world pause and remember that this is a beautiful planet and a very special place in our universe, and we should all cherish what we have been gifted,” he said.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
In this image from video provided by NASA, the Artemis II Orion capsule, right, separates from the service module above the Earth in preparation for splash down in the Pacific Ocean. (NASA via AP)
In this image provided by NASA, the Artemis II crew, counterclockwise from top left, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen, Commander Reid Wiseman, and Pilot Victor Glover pose with eclipse viewers during a lunar flyby, Monday, April 6, 2026. (NASA via AP)
In this image provided by NASA, the Artemis II crew photographed the Moons curved limb during their journey around the far side of the Moon on April 6, 2026. (NASA via AP)
In this image provided by NASA, the Artemis II crew photographed a bright portion of the Moon on April 6, 2026. (NASA via AP)
In this image provided by NASA, the Artemis II crew captured this view as the Earth sets behind the Moon during a lunar flyby, Monday, April 6, 2026. (NASA via AP)
