Flavio Briatore is sure: the great mass of F1 fans will not even realize that Alpine will no longer race with Renault engines in the 2026 world championship, but will switch to the Mercedes power unit. This theory, well constructed on the drawing board, served to make the Board of Directors of the Transalpine House digest what is a real betrayal.
There is no other term that clearly justifies the operation which was made official yesterday. If Flavio’s axiom were true, then we should ask ourselves why the big manufacturers spend such large sums to be in F1, if then the lozenge on the head of the power unit can be exchanged for the Star without there being any effect.
The operation underway, in reality, hides a much more complex plan which should lead, after the separation of the Renault engine manufacturer, to the sale of the Enstone team, in a “touch and lever” which has seen this structure, now Alpine, take over different names since the structure was founded in 1981 as Toleman, which then transformed into Benetton, Renault, Lotus and Renault again, before turning Alpine blue in the last four years.
Pierre Gasly with the Toleman TG183B: a return to the origins of the Enstone team
Photo credit: Silverstone
It is said that the customer power unit supply agreement with Mercedes was signed in Monza during the Italian GP, when the protest from Viry Chatillon employees was strongest. The Parisian structure, the technological heart of Renault, will not be dismantled, but will be used for other projects other than F1: the hydrogen engine, a supercar, the WEC unit and other motorsport-related initiatives, such as Dacia for the Dakar.
Renault rightly does not want to deprive itself of a research and development center that has given the brand 12 world motorsport titles. The latest creation, the E-Tech RE24 power unit, paid for a lack of power from the best competition, which then pushed the leaders of the transalpine company to stop the 2026 unit project which, according to the previews, had achieved results encouraging in the first bench tests.
Alpine, therefore, had already invested a large sum in the design and development of the 2026 engine which is non-repayable, while the supply of the Mercedes engine will cost 17 million per year against the investment of 100 million, i.e. the Budget cup amount that will be granted to the Builders. The savings are all too evident and become logical if they are aimed at the sale of Enstone: evidently there are investors interested in entering the Circus, after the exponential growth in the value of the ten teams that signed the Concorde Agreement. Flavio Briatore as Advisor can be a demonstration of this, just like the hiring of Oliver Oakes, the British team principal who took over the reins of Alpine, after Bruno Famin was called back to France to take care only of Viry Chatillon.
Oakes, a former Red Bull driver, was the cornerstone of Hitech Racing, the team that participates in the F1 cadet series and which had an important partner in Dmitry Mazepin before the Russian-Ukrainian war. It will be interesting to find out who will come out to take over the team, freeing Alpine from the embarrassment of racing with an engine from another manufacturer. Nothing will change in 2025, but from the following year we would not be surprised at all if a name change was requested for registration in the world championship with agile single-seaters. What may seem like a meaningless operation today could become logical and profitable tomorrow for the exit of the Renault Group.
Luca de Meo, General Director of the Renault Group
Photo by: Michael Potts / Motorsport Images
Luca De Meo, meanwhile, has taken a step back: the good Milanese manager could become the crux through which the merger of Renault with Stellantis can take place, driven by the French Government which holds an important shareholding in both groups. President Macron would look favorably on an aggregation to have a European automotive player capable of withstanding the turbulence of a car market at the mercy of the ecological transition.
What seems like a wicked operation today could take on a very sensible picture tomorrow. It always depends on the perspective with which you look at a project, accepting the idea that you have reached the end of a story.
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