Left in limbo by their parent company waiting for news, employees of Renault’s Formula 1-related engine program are making their voices heard at the Italian Grand Prix. Renault boss Luca de Meo is currently drawing up a plan to abandon the 2026 Formula 1 power unit program at Viry-Chatillon, switching instead to Mercedes customer engines via the Alpine team.
If confirmed, the decision would mark the end of a 47-year era in which Renault engines roared across the F1 grid. Since 1979, its involvement has led to 178 total victories, including nine under the TAG Heuer banner, making Renault the third most successful engine manufacturer in F1 history, thanks in part to triumphs with Williams, Benetton and Renault over the past 30 years.
At the end of July, staff at Renault’s Viry-Chatillon and Enstone plants were informed of an assessment study to outline a “transformation project” for the engine division away from its current F1 activities, and since then the 334 engine division employees in France have been anxiously awaiting their future, unhappy with any decision that would distance Viry from F1.
To make their voices heard by the public, 100 employees of – who are part of the company’s Social and Economic Council (CSE) – went to the Italian Grand Prix and unfurled banners on two sections of the grandstands on the main straight in Monza.
The CSE announced that the “vast majority” of Renault’s engine staff at Viry-Chatillon would also simultaneously strike, expressing their discontent “in a respectful but determined atmosphere”. At the start of FP1, the two groups of 50 employees all stood up to display their banners, but still applauded both drivers Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly as they took to the track.
The September 30 deadline for a decision is over, and those involved are hoping it won’t be too late for De Meo to change his mind and continue Viry’s long legacy in F1. “The aim of coming today is to be heard,” Clement Gamberoni, an engineer who runs the team’s turbocharger department at Viry, tells Motorsport.com. “We feel like we’re not being listened to enough and not having our voices heard publicly.”
Alpine protesters of Viry-Chatillon
Photo by: Anaël Bernier – Multiple Horizons
“We are passionate people. We are very proud to be in F1 and to have a car with our engine running on the track. But what we want is not to be against something. We want to be with. And we want to bring arguments to change our boss’s mind. We fully support the 2026 engine, the Alpine project in all its forms. But we think that Viry has a real purpose with F1. And without F1, Viry has no purpose.”
The banner message urges Renault to “save 50 years of French Formula 1” and lists every world championship won by a Renault engine – all 12 of them between 1992 and 2013. But while some of the blame for Alpine’s lack of performance lies with its current power units, its last world title came 11 years ago and that’s one reason why De Meo is trying to think differently. Meanwhile, there are rumours swirling about the status of Alpine’s 2026 engines, as Renault seeks to justify investing in an in-house programme when a Mercedes supply is at stake.
But Gamberoni is convinced that Renault’s 2026 power units are on the right track and that it would be unfair to pull the plug now, just 18 months after their introduction.
“The topic today is that Luca De Meo can perhaps change his mind to understand the arguments that we have, to see the evidence that we can already have on the engine running on the test bench for 2026,” he said.
Alpini protesting from Viry-Chatillon
Photo by: Anaël Bernier – Multiple Horizons
“It’s not just words. There are facts, engines that work with performance. We have people around us who know what other teams do, even if not in detail, but we know that we are technologically disruptive with the engine, and we want to bring it to the track because I think it can be one of the best or the best.”
“We took risks and got results. We have a maturity that we didn’t have 10 years ago and we have had continuity of work in F1 since the hybrid era. Now we are at a level where we know we can get results. And now we have equal weapons with the cost cap, we play the same game with the same rules, and it’s also the first time we can do it.”
But Viry-Chatillon is more than an F1 engine manufacturing plant. It is part of the fabric of the French car industry and racing heritage, a fabric that Viry believes is being torn apart even as Renault has promised to redeploy the plant and all its staff to other non-F1 projects.
“We are aware of the statements from Renault’s top management, according to which there will be no job losses for Viry employees,” Gamberoni acknowledges. “But there are two sides to the issue. There is also a side where we have many contractors working in Viry. If the decision is taken by September 30, at the end of the year they will no longer have a job, which means about 200 people. In addition, our entire network of suppliers working in F1 will lose many projects, parts, studies and so on.”
“And we also believe in Viry’s involvement in F1, because F1 brings expertise, technology – it means attractiveness – and it keeps us at the top every day. Because we have competitors who never sleep, we have to be at the top to be able to fight in Formula 1.”
Alpine protesters of Viry-Chatillon
Photo by: Anaël Bernier – Multiple Horizons
“If we want to do other projects for the Alpine brand, we can do them. But we have to do it with F1.”
Gamberoni and his colleagues appeared in good spirits as they followed Alpine’s work at Monza in free practice, but admitted that uncertainty over the schedule had hit morale at the plant hard in recent weeks. “We had the announcement [della Renault che stava esplorando opzioni alternative] at the end of July, then there was the closure,” he explained.
“People are a bit down, I don’t want to say that we are working at full capacity at the moment, because the environment in Viry is quite difficult. We are passionate people and to say that our engine will not be racing on the F1 grid in 2026 is really difficult. However, people are working because they want to see the results of their hard work.”
Additional reporting by Alex Kalinauckas
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