Jeremy Clarkson offers services to Red Bull after Alpine’s Silverstone disaster

Oliver Harden 15 Jul 2023 1:30 PM

Jeremy Clarkson looks like he's upset somebody again.

Celebrity F1 fan Jeremy Clarkson has joked that he will offer his services to Red Bull after his visit to last weekend’s British Grand Prix brought no luck to the Alpine team.

The television presenter has struck up a relationship with Alpine in recent months after tweeting during the Monaco GP in May that he would buy every member of the team a pint if they finished on the podium.

When Esteban Ocon delivered by securing third place, Clarkson honoured his promise by delivering almost 1,000 bottles of beer to Alpine’s Enstone factory.

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Clarkson was in attendance as a guest of the team at Silverstone, where both Alpine cars failed to reach the chequered flag. Ocon retired after just nine laps with an oil leak, with team-mate Pierre Gasly stopping six laps short of the finish following a collision with Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin.

To make matters worse, Alpine fell behind McLaren to sixth in theConstructors’ standingsas Lando Norris finished on the podium, and now sit 12 points behind their rivals having held an 18-point advantage prior to the British GP.

With Max Verstappen and Red Bull continuing their dominant form at Silverstone, Clarkson says he might take his jinx-link presence to the reigning World Champions to bring some much-needed excitement to the 2023 season.

Writing ina column for The Sun newspaper, he said: “I went to the British Grand Prix last weekend with my local team Alpine and, despite having me as a mascot, it wasn’t their best race. One car broke down and the other was punted into retirement by Lance Stroll.

“I wrote afterwards to say thank you for the hospitality and have received a reply asking me never to join them again. Maybe I should offer my mascot services to Red Bull.”

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The British GP was the second race Clarkson has attended in 2023, having also made the trip to Bahrain for the season-opener as a guest of the crown prince.

Following his visit to the Sakhir venue, the formerTop Gearhostexpressed his frustration that F1 does not work as a live eventand is better suited as a spectacle to a television audience.

“This is the problem with Formula 1 as a live event,” he commented in the Sunday Times.

“You have to be very lucky to see an incident, and even if you do it’s usually over in a flash and there are no slow-motion replays to help you understand what caused it. This, then, is a sport that has only ever really worked on television.”