Gucci Replaces BWT as Alpine F1 Title Sponsor From 2027

Gucci will paint over the Alpine name on Formula 1’s grid from 2027, taking over title sponsorship from Austrian water-treatment firm BWT and rebadging the Enstone outfit as the Gucci Racing Alpine Formula One Team. The Italian fashion house has signed what industry estimates value at a three-year, roughly $150 million deal with Renault’s grand prix squad, replacing Alpine’s blue-and-pink livery with what the team described as “Gucci colours” when lights go out on the 2027 season opener.

It is the loudest Formula 1 sponsorship announcement of the year and the first time a luxury fashion house has held title-partner status on the grid. It also lands at a moment when both sides badly need the win.

The Deal on Paper

Alpine’s confirmation on Wednesday ends weeks of speculation that began with reporting earlier this month. Austrian filtration brand BWT (Best Water Technology), title sponsor since 2022, will exit at the close of the current campaign. From 2027, Gucci becomes principal partner under a multi-year agreement.

The numbers being briefed around the paddock are striking. Industry estimates put the value at $50 to $60 million per season, taking the three-year package above $150 million. For context, BWT’s title deal sat in a far lower band, with its branding rooted in pink-coloured awareness campaigns rather than nine-figure spend.

The de Meo Playbook Moves to Kering

To understand why this deal happened so quickly, follow the executive. Luca de Meo ran Renault Group from 2020 to mid-2025 and was the man who pushed Alpine to the front of the company’s marketing strategy, including the F1 program. In September 2025 he took over as chief executive of Kering, Gucci’s Paris-listed parent.

De Meo’s pitch on the deal frames F1 less as a sport and more as a media property.

Formula One has evolved far beyond sport to become one of the world’s most powerful premium content platforms, reaching over 1.5 billion people each season and inspiring a rapidly expanding, younger and increasingly female audience.

That is Luca de Meo, Kering’s chief executive, in Wednesday’s announcement. The line about a “younger and increasingly female audience” matters: it is the demographic Gucci sells to and the one the brand has been losing.

Renault’s Read on the Partnership

Francois Provost, who took over from de Meo as Renault Group chief executive, framed the deal as scaffolding for Alpine’s brand-building rather than a financial backstop. “For Renault Group, as a historic Formula 1 manufacturer, it is a powerful asset to support Alpine’s ambition,” he said, citing “awareness, desirability and influence across markets.”

The Briatore Endorsement

Alpine team principal Flavio Briatore, who returned to Enstone in 2024, called Gucci’s calibre “something I am incredibly proud of.” Briatore knows the fashion-and-F1 crossover better than anyone in the modern paddock; he ran Benetton through its title-winning era and has spent four decades pairing branded clothing with grand prix racing.

Gucci’s 25% Problem

The deal does not happen if Gucci is healthy. It is not. The flagship brand’s revenue fell 25% on a comparable basis in the first quarter of 2025, on top of a 21% slide in 2024. Kering group sales dropped 14% in Q1 2025 as Saint Laurent and Balenciaga also weakened.

The trajectory has improved through de Meo’s first months at the top, but only modestly.

• Q1 2025: Gucci comparable sales down 25%
• Q3 2025: Sales down 18% to roughly 1.3 billion euros, narrowing the decline
• Q4 2025: Down 10%, the smallest quarterly drop in two years
• Creative reset: Demna Gvasalia, previously of Balenciaga, took over as Gucci creative director in July 2025

De Meo’s strategic plan for Kering, internally dubbed ReconKering, targets a turnaround stretching out to 2030. The F1 deal is one of the most visible early bets within it. Coverage of high-end fashion’s commercial mechanics shows how luxury houses have leaned on cultural sponsorships when wholesale and store traffic soften, and F1 happens to be the sport with the steepest viewership growth curve.

The math is unforgiving. Spending around $50 million a year to chase a 1.5 billion audience values each viewer at roughly three cents per season, which a luxury marketer would call cheap if it converts. Whether the audience that streams the Netflix series and buys a $40 cap then walks into a Milan boutique is the live question.

Alpine’s Best Start in a Decade Helps Sell the Story

Sponsors do not sign $150 million deals with backmarkers, and Alpine has done its part. The team sits fifth in the constructors’ standings after the first three rounds of 2026, just two points behind Haas. Its 23-point tally already exceeds the squad’s entire 2025 haul.

Pierre Gasly has been the centrepiece. The Frenchman is the only non-Mercedes and non-Ferrari driver to have scored points in every grand prix this season, including a sixth in Shanghai and a seventh at Suzuka. It is the first time in his career he has scored in three consecutive opening races.

That on-track resurgence matters because the announcement language hinges on it. Briatore’s statement called out “the improved performance on track” and Alpine’s “best-ever points total to start a season” as the momentum carrying the Gucci pitch. A 2027 title-partner reveal in 2026 needs a story to sell; this season has provided one.

Fashion’s Long Lineage on the Grid

Gucci is the first luxury house to hold title-partner status, but fashion has been threading through Formula 1 for nearly four decades.

• Benetton ran its own works team from 1986 to 2001, winning two drivers’ titles with Michael Schumacher under Briatore’s leadership before Renault bought the outfit, the same Enstone factory Alpine inherits today
• Tommy Hilfiger joined Team Lotus in 1991, signed with Ferrari from 1998 to 2002, then returned with Mercedes from 2018 to 2024 and most recently announced apparel partnership with Cadillac’s 2026 grid entrant
• Puma has dressed paddock teams for two decades, with current deals across Ferrari, Mercedes and others
• Palace, Awake NY, Mowalola and a roster of streetwear labels have produced capsule collections with teams since 2020, pulling fashion editorial coverage onto race weekends

What separates Gucci from that lineage is the title slot itself. Hilfiger has put logos on suits and noses; Benetton owned a team. Gucci is buying the team’s name on the entry list, which is the highest-tier branding F1 sells.

What the 2027 Grid Looks Like for Both Sides

Some things stay. The Enstone factory still runs, Renault remains the chassis manufacturer and engine project lead, and Alpine endures as the racing brand below Gucci on the entry. The pink awareness liveries of the BWT era disappear, replaced by whatever palette Kering’s creative team and Demna Gvasalia agree on, almost certainly built around Gucci’s heritage greens, reds and creams.

For Gucci, the test is conversion. F1’s audience reach is large and skews younger than legacy luxury buyers, but the brand’s recent collapse came from a clarity-of-identity problem that a paint job will not solve on its own. The Demna era at Balenciaga rebuilt sales through provocative product and culture moments; the Demna era at Gucci has to do the same, with the race car as a rolling billboard rather than a cure.

For Alpine, the deal underwrites a multi-year sponsorship floor at a moment when the team is climbing back into competitiveness under F1’s new 2026 technical regulations. The cash funds the wind-tunnel hours, simulator development and driver salary structure that fifth-place teams need to chase fourth and third.

If Gucci’s place in F1’s fashion lineage ends up being a one-cycle experiment that quietly exits in 2030, the deal will read as an expensive de Meo signature on a problem the catwalk had to solve. If Alpine wins races in Gucci red while Kering’s quarterly numbers turn green, it will be the template every luxury house copies into the back half of the decade. The first answer arrives when the cars roll out of the garage in Melbourne, March 2027.