Is the French Team Alpine's Decision to Change to a Mercedes Engine Worth the Cost Savings?

Alpine F1 Team, currently racing as BWT Alpine F1 Team for sponsorship reasons, is the name under which the Enstone-based Formula One team has been competing since the start of the 2021 Formula One World Championship. Formerly named Renault F1 Team and owned by the French automotive company Groupe Renault as well as Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi Alliance, the team was rebranded for 2021 to promote Renault's sports car brand, Alpine, and continues to serve as Renault's works team, a position the team will keep until Renault pulls out of Formula One after 2025. The chassis and managerial side of the team is based in Enstone, Oxfordshire, England, and the Renault-branded engine side of the team is based in Viry-Châtillon, a suburb of Paris, France. The team competes with a French licence.

Photographe:Erik Junius

Was it a good decision from Alpine to become a customer team by 2026 ?

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• YES
• NO

Let's begin by saying that engine development has been halted for all teams since 2022. However, this doesn't justify the drop from P4 in 2022 to a disappointing P9 and becoming a backmarker out of nowhere! How did Alpine find itself in this position? The root cause can be attributed to ongoing instability within the team, which originated when Cyril Abiteboul was inexplicably removed in 2021. The decline can also be attributed to a series of poor decisions, such as allowing key figures in the aerodynamics and chassis departments to depart for rival teams like Mercedes, Red Bull, McLaren, and Williams. Notable departures include Pat Fry in the summer of 2023 and Rémi Taffin in August 2021, both significant names in F1 who left the team. Additionally, frequent changes in team management and drivers have contributed to the instability, with Daniel Ricciardo (2019-2020) delivering only one podium and Fernando Alonso (2021-2022) causing more problems than solutions, draining the team's energy. It's worth mentioning Alonso's outstanding defense in Hungary that enabled Esteban Ocon to secure his first and only victory to date. The turning point came in 2022 with the appointment of Laurent Rossi, triggering a major restructuring within the team. However, this change in leadership sparked numerous disputes and disagreements, particularly regarding the direction to take in terms of chassis and aerodynamics, leading to tensions between Rossi and Fry throughout the 2022 season. The high expectations from Luca Di Meo, President of the Renault Group, exacerbated the conflicts, ultimately resulting in Fry's departure in 2023. Despite finishing the season in a respectable P6 with 120 points and securing two podiums in Monaco and the Netherlands with Ocon and Gasly respectively, the prolonged instability is bound to have lasting repercussions.

In 2024, the nightmares began, revealing the significant gap caused by these poor decisions! The car is excessively heavy, even though it is constructed with almost entirely carbon fiber to reduce weight. It features a completely new aerodynamics concept and chassis. However, the extensive turnover within the team over a period of 3 years resulted in a car that was a complete failure! The car was flawed from the start, with the chassis proving to be a total failure and the aerodynamics concept being both ineffective and useless!

In addition to reliability issues, car suffers from a power deficit in the power unit.

At the Bahrain Grand Prix, the team locked out the bottom of the grid in qualifying and finished the race in 17th and 18th. After the race, it was announced that Alpine's technical director Matt Harman and head of aerodynamics Dirk de Beer had left the team, with the team moving to a structure of three technical directors, with Joe Burnell overseeing engineering, David Wheater for aerodynamics and Ciaron Pilbeam for performance. A few days later, it was reported that Bob Bell will leave his advisory role at Alpine to reunite with Fernando Alonso at Aston Martin in an operational role. On June 21, 2024, Alpine F1 Team made official the return of Flavio Briatore as Executive Advisor. Briatore says he wants to "bring back the culture of winning. That's what allowed me to win with Renault and Benetton. "

On September 30, 2024, despite investing several million in the design and development of its new power unit, Renault Sport announced the end of the F1 engine project. The Ile-de-France site will focus on the development of battery and electric motor technologies. An F1 monitoring unit will be created to "maintain the knowledge and skills of employees in this sport [...] and stay at the forefront of innovation".

By becoming a customer team Alpine looses it's french identity that started in 1977 with Jean pierre Jabouille and goes from spending over 300 millions a year for his power unit to 50 millions by paying Mercedes for their engine ! but it goes beyond cost saving, Alpine and DI Meo decided to put 50 years of work and innovation from Men and women into dust and to the statue of story !

Let's see if the future will prove right for them but it is a sad day for F1 but espacially for all those Men and Women who putted their soul through this Engine ! But it is also the death of the French Identity for the team being based in England who will had a German engine in 2026 !

Par LoupDragon42 — File:Hadrien_David_Cyril_Abiteboul_2.jpg, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=97461991

Par DaHuzyBru — Travail personnel, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=144291250

Daniel Ricciardo

Par Box Repsol | Flickr — https://www.flickr.com/photos/box_repsol/26877535660/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53803565

Fernando Alonso

Par Morio — Travail personnel, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63878948

Esteban Ocon (Force India) at the fan meeting

Par Yvwv, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2221721

Flavio Briatore

Par Alpine F1 Team — https://fr.sports.yahoo.com/news/f1-l-écurie-alpine-devient-113500054.htmlhttps://en.media.alpinecars.com/photos/2022-bwt-and-alpine-f1-team-logo-91c3-989c5.html?lang=en, marque déposée,