One of the biggest surprises of the chaotic 2024 edition of the race that, despite F1’s best efforts, everyone still calls the Brazilian Grand Prix, was a double podium for Alpine. The Anglo-French outfit has faced an uphill struggle for much of the 2024 season, so the team’s consistent pace in the poor conditions and solid strategy that led to Esteban Ocon claiming second and Pierre Gasly taking third was a much needed release.
When the team once known as Renault gets a podium, it’s become something of a tradition for Jeremy Clarkson to appear at its HQ in Enstone, Oxfordshire with large quantities of celebratory beer. The team is located around a 15-minute drive from Clarkson’s Diddly Squat Farm near Chipping Norton, and not much further away from the Hawkstone brewery that produces his range of beers.
In a short video on Alpine’s YouTube channel, we see Pierre Gasly addressing the team before Clarkson pulls into the workshop in an Alpine A110 to present the team with a delicious, refreshing prize.
In a gift exchange of sorts, Clarkson is then presented with the front wing and nosecone of an Alpine F1 car, something he says he plans to mount on the wall of his new pub, The Farmer’s Dog, ahead of the Red Bull team holding its Christmas party there in a couple of weeks.
While Clarkson has repeatedly said he supports Alpine as it’s his local team, it’s not the only F1 squad to be associated with his farm. Just a few days ago, McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was seen trying out some of the agricultural equipment at Diddly Squat – and doing a decent job, by Kaleb Cooper’s reckoning.
Whether Clarkson will have to hand over any more booze for the rest of this season remains to be seen – with just three more races to go, at Las Vegas, Qatar and Abu Dhabi, it’s a fairly reasonable assumption that normal 2024 service will be resumed, with Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren all vying for podiums.
Alpine, meanwhile, will switch to Mercedes power for 2026 – while Renault will still own the team, it’ll cease building its own engines, bringing to an end over 35 uninterrupted years of Renault power units in F1.
