Alfa Romeo attempted to stay in F1 for 2024 but current team turned down cut-price deal

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Alfa Romeo may be leaving the Formula 1 grid in 2024, but that wasn’t necessarily the way they wanted their relationship with the sport to end having had discussions with Sauber’s rivals Haas.

A report from The Race has shared more information on the Italian car brand’s relationship with F1.

Formula 1 historians will know that Alfa Romeo’s relationship with the sport started at the very beginning.

In the decades before F1 began, Alfa Romeo were a prominent name in motor racing and were on the grid for the first-ever Formula 1 race.

At the British Grand Prix in 1950, Alfa Romeo driver Giuseppe Farina took pole position, fastest lap and won the race for the team.

It wasn’t called this at the time, but the Italian driver had just completed a Grand Slam in the first race in F1 history.

Farina went on to win the first Drivers’ Championship and the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio followed suit in 1951, both for Alfa Romeo.

The Italian manufacturer left F1 on a high before spending 7 seasons in the sport at the beginning of the 1980s.

Alfa Romeo’s latest spell in Formula 1 will end in 2024 although they sounded out Haas over a potential partnership.

The perception that they were a works team over the last five years rather than the brand attached to Sauber’s name has certainly worked.

Not only that, they got a great deal but couldn’t replicate that with the American outfit.

Alfa Romeo held discussions with Haas over 2024 deal

The report from The Race suggests that Alfa Romeo and Haas had ‘discussions’ about a possible partnership.

Alfa Romeo wanted the same deal they had with Sauber at the time, but this appealed less to the American team.

They had already struck a lucrative sponsorship deal with Moneygram and that meant they didn’t necessarily need to rebrand.

Alfa Romeo initially paid £17.1m a year as part of their partnership with Sauber which right now looks like a steal considering the increased exposure Formula 1 has created in the past few years and the Italian manufacturer wanted a similar deal with Haas.

It was more than just about money though, with the report going on to say that Alfa Romeo CEO Jean-Philippe Imparato was very friendly with senior Sauber figures and the Swiss team definitely got something out of the partnership too.

Haas will hope they can improve on their 10^th-place finish in the Constructors’ Championship in 2024 and a deal with Alfa Romeo may have given them an important cash injection but ultimately didn’t seem like a requirement moving forward.

It’s up to Guenther Steiner, Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen to turn their fortunes around.

It’s a driver line-up the team have been dreaming of for some time but hasn’t quite worked out thus far.