Wrexham’s owners, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhinney, will be part of an investor group that will take a 24 per cent stake in the Alpine Formula 1 racing team.
The F1 team’s parent company, Renault, confirmed this Reynolds and McElhinney will join Otro Capital and RedBird Capital Partners buy a stake.
The $218m (£171m) deal values Great Britain-based Alpine Racing at around $900m (£707m).
Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi said: “This association is an important step to enhance our performance at all levels.
Otro Capital, RedBird Capital Partners and Maximum Effort Investments, as international players with a strong track record in the sports industry, will bring their recognized expertise to enhance our media and marketing strategy, which is essential to support our sports performance over the long term.
“The resulting increased revenue will be reinvested into the team, in order to further accelerate our Mountain Climber plan, which aims to catch up with the top teams in terms of state of the art facilities and equipment.”
Reynolds and McElhinney completed full takeovers of Wrexham in 2021. The Welsh club returned to the English Football League last season after an absence of 15 years.
American investment company RedBird is an investor in the Fenway Sports Group, owner of the English Premier League team Liverpool and the Boston Red Sox baseball team.
Redbird also bought AC Milan in August 2022 for €1.2 billion and has a controlling stake in French club Toulouse.
Alpine is currently fifth on the F1 leaderboard after eight races out of 22.
How much is this a bargain for Alpine?
Luke Smith analysis
When Renault rebranded its F1 team as Alpine in 2021, it laid out a 100-race plan to become Formula 1’s flagship by 2025.
With the exception of Esteban Ocon’s shock win in Hungary in 2021, Alpine has struggled to compete regularly with F1 front-running operations, such as Red Bull and Mercedes, whose superior utility flows into better car design. This investment will help fill this gap in the Alps.
It will also bring some extra star power to the Alps. Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhinney have worked wonders with Wrexham, catching the attention of the wider sporting world.
That may only be a 24 per cent share, but that connection and input could only be beneficial to Alpine, potentially giving it greater reach outside of F1’s regular fanbase.
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(Photo: Martin Rickett/PA Images via Getty Images)
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