How a lawyer-turned-journalist became a crucial player in Alfa's F1 revival

Those who have met Alessandro Alunni Bravi will be familiar with his lawyerly facility to casually retrieve historical facts and figures from the depths of his memory. Ask him what influenced his choice of career and two dates spring forth.

23 May 1992: Italian judge Giovanni Falcone was killed near the town of Capaci on the A29 motorway on his way from the airport to his hometown of Palermo. The explosion, which also claimed the lives of Falcone’s wife and three policemen accompanying him, was so powerful that it registered on local earthquake monitors. It was an act of revenge by the Sicilian Mafia in the wake of the Maxi Trial, considered the biggest trial in world history, in which 338 members of the Cosa Nostra were convicted.

“On 19 July, Falcone’s ally Paolo Borsellino was killed along with five members of his escort in another bombing in Palermo,” Alunni Bravi explains over breakfast with GP Racing at the luxurious Villa Igiea in that very city. “I was 17 at the time, and I said to myself that I wanted to study law. I wanted to become a lawyer because I have this sense of justice. I wanted to become a judge, go to Palermo, and fight against the Mafia. This was my dream.”

He had another passion, though: motorsport. Growing up in Passignano sul Trasimeno in central Italy, the student of the traditional Liceo classico, who studied Ancient Greek, Latin, and Italian literature, spent weekends either at the Autodromo dell’Umbria in nearby Magione or mopping the floors at the factory of Enzo Coloni’s Passignano-based racing team, which competed in Formula 1 between 1987 and 1991.

“I was going there with my bike,” smiles Alunni Bravi, “I could just knock on the door and ask, ‘Enzo, can I watch the cars?’, and he’d say, ‘Yes, but first you need to do the job’, so I had
to sweep the floor to earn my entry ticket.

“Enzo was a family friend. My father was also passionate about motor racing. When he was younger he had a small single-seater, which he eventually sold to Enzo. And that’s how Enzo started his motorsport career.

“That passion transferred to me. We were always at the circuit in Magione, and if there were no races there we’d go to see hillclimb competitions in Umbria. We also went to see Formula 2 European championship races in Misano and then at Vallelunga in 1980.

Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Team Representative, Alfa Romeo F1 Team

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro

“There was this English team racing, Toleman, which I remembered even though I was very small at the time – later it entered Formula 1 with Candy as a sponsor. And my father had a shop selling household appliances – if you wanted to buy an oven or a TV in Passignano, you had to go to Giampaolo!

“He was selling Candy washing machines, too. So he wrote to his suppliers, saying, ‘My son is so passionate about motorsport’ and so on – I got a letter back from Toleman with a picture signed by Derek Warwick, which I now know was fake, made by some Candy sales manager to please my father. But at the time I was so happy!

“Later, with my father, we bought an old prototype to race in the Italian championship, and I even won the under-25 category. But we had no resources to continue. And I don’t think
I was a top driver.”

At that point taking on the Mafia seemed the more plausible plan.

Lawyer? Journalist? Both?

It’s no accident we’re meeting up at Villa Igiea, now a five-star hotel. Built in the late 19th century, it was then purchased by Ignazio Florio junior, whose brother Vincenzo is best known as the founder of the Targa Florio road race. Accompanied by the Alfa Romeo F1 team boss, we set out from one of the Florio residences to drive part of that legendary route in a 1969 GT 1300 Junior, entrusted to us by the local Alfa Romeo club.

Alunni Bravi never did move to Palermo to fight the mafia, but now comes to Sicily every year on holiday. His familiarity with the locale is manifest in the deft manner with which he swerves through the streets of Palermo. The Targa Florio was notoriously difficult – its earliest route was three 92-mile laps of steep, hostile mountain roads – but before we reach that terrain we must survive the attentions of the reckless descendants of Tazio Nuvolari and Alberto Ascari, who show precious little respect for our sumptuous burgundy Alfa.

“For me, this is what you need when you go on holiday,” he laughs. “In Formula 1 we’re always structured. But when you need to relax, you
need to find the opposite! I love coming here. No rules, no efficiency, no processes!”

Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Team Representative, Alfa Romeo F1 Team

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro

Alunni Bravi’s path to F1 hasn’t been straightforward. Having graduated with Honours in Civil Law from the University of Perugia, and got into a prestigious law firm, he suddenly – via a colleague who also happened to write for Italian magazine Autosprint – became a member of the fourth estate. Dealing with, as he puts it, “serious stuff” during the week as a lawyer, on weekends Alunni Bravi wrote about racing stars of the future for karting mag Vroom.

“I thought we should cover some of the first steps of former karters in single-seaters,” he recalls. “I remember going to Mugello, for a Formula Renault 2.0 race, and watching cars around the track at the Casanova-Savelli section. I was very impressed by this blond kid in a Manor car, called Kimi something.

“There was a change of asphalt on entry, right at the braking point. During practice all the drivers used to brake before the bump. Kimi, first lap, braked after it – and, boom, entered the corner sliding. ‘OK, next lap he’ll be out,’ I thought. But he repeated it again and again.

“He retired from the race but my whole article was about that kid – and of course, all the Italian guys called the editor-in-chief, crying, ‘Oh, we have no support from the media!’ But 12 months later Kimi [Raikkonen] was on the F1 grid in Melbourne with Sauber.”

Soon enough, Alunni Bravi was hired by Autosprint and spent two seasons in the early 2000s covering Formula 1 for one of Italy’s biggest motorsport publications.

“I was more on the technical side, race strategies. I remember before each race we had a preview, talking about the challenges of the next circuit. I was going to Modena to meet with [former Ferrari designer] Mauro Forghieri at the golf club: we’d have a lunch, talk, and I’d be taking notes. That was a great time.”

The Todt connection

As we turn towards Cerda, where the Targa Florio races began, Alunni Bravi puts his Sicily tour-guide hat back on.

“If we’d carry on, we’d end up in Cefalù,” he says. “There is a Cathedrale, Duomo di Cefalù, with Byzantine period mosaics, including the famous Cristo Pantocratore. It’s a real jewel – if it were in New York, you’d have millions of visitors there, but here in Italy sometimes we don’t take care of our heritage.”

Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Team Representative, Alfa Romeo F1 Team

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro

The rickety, cracked old pit building, covered with sun-bleached tarpaulin, and the abandoned Targa Florio grandstand in Cerda serve as further examples of benign neglect.

“It took a lot of time for me to be, let’s say, forgotten as a journalist in F1,” Alunni Bravi says as we stop. “Like if it was something negative: ‘He’s a journalist, so he can’t be a manager.’ But I was a lawyer as well. I was working with drivers, as a consultant with drivers’ management companies, with teams. Even from karting, when I was writing for Vroom, every time
there was some legal issue, people came to me.”

After being tapped up by Pasquale Lattuneddu, Bernie Ecclestone’s right-hand man, Alunni Bravi headed to Sardinia to take care of some legal issues around European F3000’s Cagliari Grand Prix. He did – and then helped organise the event’s second edition.

He’d eventually spend three more years on Italy’s second-largest island, overseeing the World Rally Championship round, before a meeting with Italian music producer and businessman Maurizio Salvadori led to a position running a new GP2 team named after Salvadori’s Trident Music company. In the end, an offer from Nicolas Todt to join his All Road Management company brought Alunni Bravi back into the F1 world.

“Nicolas was the one who really gave me the chance,” he says. “Not only did I have the opportunity to see him working, but he also gave me a lot of confidence to run businesses for him. I was managing drivers, we had Felipe Massa, Jules Bianchi, Pastor Maldonado.

“We were the exclusive agent for the [World Endurance Championship promoter] ACO, and I was in charge of all the contracts with the circuits. Then we started the ART Grand Prix team in karting, working with Charles Leclerc as one of our drivers. I remember going with Charles to a small Italian circuit in Siena for his first race outside France – and I still have the report I’d done back then for Nicolas.”

Six years working alongside Todt convinced Alunni Bravi he was ready to strike out on his own. He admits it also took a bit of encouragement from Frederic Vasseur, Todt’s partner at ART Grand Prix, who also used Alunni Bravi’s services as a lawyer.

“Working with Nicolas was one of the most important parts of my professional career,” says Alunni Bravi. “I had to decide, either I want to continue being an employee, or try something on my own. Fred was really supportive in pushing me to do this step, creating my own company.”

After working as a journalist, Alluni Bravi ran GP2 squad Trident Racing, which counted Gianmaria Bruni among its driving talent

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro

Alunni Bravi’s Trusted Talent Management immediately had a strong driver line-up, including Robert Kubica and Stoffel Vandoorne. But the link with Vasseur didn’t break.

“When I started my own management company,” he says, “Fred was leaving Renault and was going on a six-month gardening leave. Half a year later, he asked me to join Sauber.”

“The most clever partnership in 10 years”

Our last stop is in Collesano for a lunch at
the Ristorante Pizzeria Targa, within sight
of the iconic Collesano hairpin, and a visit
to Targa Florio museum featuring the relics of Alfa Romeo’s nine wins in the race – including the first one, in 1923, by Ugo Sivocci. An experienced but notoriously unlucky racer, Sivocci painted a white square with a green four-leaf clover – the quadrifoglio – on his car’s radiator to ward off bad luck and, after his victory in Sicily, it became the symbol of racing Alfas.

“I’m passionate about motorsport,” says Alunni Bravi as we peruse the museum’s exhibits. “It’s not something you can hide. But my working style comes from law – it made me who I am, as an individual. Passion is something that makes you work with enthusiasm, make sacrifices. But to do this job, you need to be rational. When I’m at the office, I don’t think about passion, I think about what is best for my company.

“But being an Italian, I am also proud to represent Alfa Romeo in F1, especially this year in my new role. And I’m proud of what we’ve achieved together.”

The naming deal, which kicked off in 2018, was a win-win for Sauber and the Italian brand. Alfa Romeo got something that looked like a works Formula 1 team during the years of the championship’s rapid growth, at a title sponsorship price. Sauber, which in mid-2016 was taken over by Tetrapak heir Finn Rausing’s Longbow Finance, got its chance to grow again after several seasons verging on bankruptcy.

“For me it was the most clever partnership in F1 in the past 10 years,” says Alunni Bravi. “For the first time, we gave to a title sponsor the possibility to brand the chassis name – and therefore, for a car manufacturer, to be perceived as a constructor, although it was only a commercial partnership at first.

“For the team, it gave us the possibility to do proper recruitment, because we could present the project with a long-term vision. It gave us credibility in discussions with sponsors, it made us attractive, thanks to the association with such a brand.”

Branding the Sauber cars gave Alfa Romeo the impression of being a bone fide manufacturer

Photo by: Alfa Romeo

When Vasseur and Alunni Bravi joined the team, Sauber’s cars carried huge logos on the engine covers marking 25 years in Formula 1. These were in lieu of actual sponsors.

“When we arrived at Sauber, I can tell you the exact amount of sponsorship money we had, because I remember it very well,” Alunni Bravi says. “Zero. There was not a single sponsor, only technical suppliers. Last year we finished with 52 partners. And Alfa Romeo has been instrumental for us in becoming a credible player in F1.

“I was there with Fred from the beginning, working with him, as a general counsel of course, but also on a daily basis being involved in the processes at the factory, during race weekends. Fred was really a mentor, giving me confidence and freedom to negotiate with partners, sponsors, to draft contracts.

“With the inertia in F1, the process of rebuilding the team takes years. Sauber inherited the facilities from the BMW era, but that picture remained unchanged for more than 12 years, with no investment, no updates, and no maintenance, really. We went from 280 people in 2017 to 530 at the end of last year, and it is sort of a full transformation process, which was started by Fred, and we’re still at the halfway point.”

Into the spotlight

Purists might grizzle at the thought of classic brands launching SUV models but it’s these which the market increasingly demands. As we return our gorgeous (and thankfully undamaged) GT 1300 Junior into the loving hands of the local Alfisti we decant into a Stelvio – very much a pointer to Alfa’s future, though its somewhat generic envelope is by no means as trendsetting as the Giugiaro-penned beauty we’ve just enjoyed. And Alfa Romeo’s future no longer includes Formula 1.

The Sauber deal was simply too good to last too long. Back on its feet, the team then became a prime target for potential investors – and, a year and a half ago, when Vasseur promoted Alunni Bravi to the role of managing director, discussions with Audi became one of the key projects.

PLUS: The scale of the challenge facing Audi's F1 assault

A future takeover was announced in mid-2022. Half a year later Alunni Bravi got another job title, taking on some of the tasks previously discharged by Vasseur, who left for Ferrari. Alunni Bravi’s role as ‘team representative’ allows the company’s new CEO Andreas Seidl to focus on the bigger picture, which is preparing Sauber for its future as Audi’s works team.

Alunni Bravi moved to the forefront as a team representative to give Seidl more scope to focus on bigger picture preparations for Audi's arrival

Photo by: Alfa Romeo

“From a personal point of view it was really hard for me to see him leave, because Fred was always a mentor,” says Alunni Bravi. “But, as we say in Italy, at a certain point you need to be able to walk with your own legs.

“Then, together with Mr Rausing, we discussed who could be the right person to replace Fred, in view of the transformation into an Audi works team in 2026. And we thought Andreas the best option because he knows the Volkswagen Audi Group, having worked at Porsche for many years.

“And then, already with Andreas, we talked about my position. I’m a member of the board of directors of the Sauber Group and I have a strong relationship with the owner. But I never asked for anything. And it was Andreas who offered me the opportunity to be a team representative at the track, in addition to my role as managing director – so we created that new position.

“It’s something new for me. I’ve been a team principal in GP2 and a team manager in Formula 3000, but not in F1. I didn’t care if I’d be seen as a team principal. I want to give my contribution. We have Xevi Pujolar, our head of track engineering operations, and we have Beat Zehnder as a sporting director. We split our tasks, having a clear perimeter, freeing our leader, Andreas Seidl, to bring us forward.

“I have to say, this role of a ‘frontman’ feels a bit strange – as a lawyer, I always worked behind the scenes. But it also means more responsibility. And having responsibilities is something I enjoy.”

Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Team Representative, Alfa Romeo F1 Team

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro