Alpine has made it official that the Formula 1 power unit program will not continue beyond 2025. The news, which has been in the air for some time, was communicated today after the consultative vote which validated the plan with the guidelines of the Alpine Racing F1 plan.
The scenario takes shape that sees the Enstone team become a Mercedes customer team, definitively abandoning the power units built in Viry-Chatillon. The future of the historic French headquarters, where engines were created that have won 12 world titles over three decades, is currently a question mark, what is certain is only that the activity relating to the Formula 1 power units will cease at end of next year. In a statement it was revealed that the company will be transformed into an engineering center to contribute to the technology of future Renault and Alpine cars.
Flavio Briatore, Executive Advisor Alpine F1
Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images
The atypical nature of an Alpine-Mercedes agreement stands out, seeing two companies collaborate that in the automotive world have seen a collaboration born in 2010 slowly fade away at the behest of the then CEOs Carlos Ghosn and Dieter Zetsche is not common.
What then is the point of an agreement between two companies that have nothing to share on the market? There are those who argue that in the path started by Luca De Meo for the relaunch of the team (calling Flavio Briatore on board) the partnership with Mercedes is the shortest way to return to the top positions. But there is also another scenario.
If the definitive exit from Formula 1 was decided in Paris (which also includes the sale of the team), the agreement with Mercedes is a crucial step towards making the Enstone structure salable. Putting a team on the market with an agreement for the supply of power units is one thing, it is quite another to try to sell a Formula 1 team with the Viry-Chatillon headquarters attached.
It is decidedly less likely that a fund (now very fashionable among those interested in acquiring the ownership of Formula 1 teams) wants to take on the risks and costs of building and managing a power unit, much more attractive is the purchase of a leaner team with a consolidated partnership with an engine engineer already present in Formula 1.
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