Steve Nielsen is a British motorsport operations executive who serves as Managing Director of the BWT Alpine F1 Team, responsible for running the team's day-to-day operations at Enstone under Executive Advisor Flavio Briatore. Born 2 July 1964, he is one of the most experienced sporting and operations specialists in the paddock, with a career spanning four decades. ¹²

Early career

Nielsen left school in 1985 and briefly trained as a police officer, resigning after about eleven months. He then drove a truck for an F1 catering company, which led to a job in Team Lotus's test team in 1986 at around the age of 20, initially driving trucks before moving into the spare-parts department. At Lotus he worked during the Ayrton Senna era and credits the experience with teaching him the value of teamwork. ¹³

“Nielsen left school in 1985 and briefly trained as a police officer, resigning after about eleven months.”

Sporting roles across the paddock

Nielsen moved to Tyrrell in 1991, becoming assistant team manager in 1994 — a spell he describes as formative because he could learn team management and FIA regulations at the back of the grid 'and make mistakes no one saw.' He set up a test team for the Honda project in the late 1990s under the mentorship of technical director Harvey Postlethwaite, had a brief year at Arrows, and was then recruited to Enstone by Mike Gascoyne. There he became Sporting Director through the team's Benetton, Renault and Lotus guises, a decade-long tenure that included the 2005 and 2006 World Championship-winning seasons with Fernando Alonso. He later held roles at Caterham (2012) and Scuderia Toro Rosso (from 2013), before becoming Sporting Manager at Williams from December 2014 to mid-2017. ¹³

Formula 1 and FIA roles

In August 2017 Nielsen became Sporting Director of Formula 1 itself — the commercial rights holder — working under Ross Brawn and helping shape the sporting regulations for the ground-effect era. During the COVID-19 pandemic he was central to building the 2020 calendar, establishing the Austrian double-header as the foundation race and constructing the rest of the season around it. In January 2023 he moved to a similar FIA Sporting Director role, but left after roughly a year, in December 2023. ¹³

Managing Director at Alpine

Nielsen was announced as Alpine's Managing Director in July 2025, effective 1 September 2025 ahead of the Italian Grand Prix, brought back to Enstone by Briatore to bring operational stability after Oliver Oakes's departure. He reports to Briatore and runs the team's day-to-day operations. He has likened the task to the early-2000s Renault rebuild, saying victory 'will be ever more sweet when we get there because we've come from such low beginnings.' ²³⁴

Bottom line

Nielsen brings nearly four decades of trackside, sporting-governance and operations experience to Alpine's leadership. His appointment pairs an experienced, steady operational hand with Briatore's strategic drive — a deliberate division of labour intended to professionalise the running of a team in transition. ¹²