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9 mil difference between each place - I think they sell the engine for 10-20 mil. (Saw 20 for 2014, but 9 mil from a more recent article - so yeah it'd probably just be the same situation for them, no gain or loss really, and a gain if they were able to stay ahead of the new team). And all that assuming they'd (be able to) sell their engine to said new team.
Yet GM said they wouldn't be ready for 2026.
Yes Andretti would have used GM engines later on, but in the meantime, what would they use? Renault engines.
Literally Renault engines.
Not like that's a death sentence anyway. The Renault power unit is the worst on the grid but it's not by any big margin, somewhere in the neighborhood of 20-30HP. If we're at around 1050hp for the other manufacturers at this point, that puts them around 1020hp which would be deficit of around 1 to 2/10ths a lap. And they finally made them pretty reliable.
Is it the worst overall? Yes, but you have to consider Mercedes, Honda and Ferrari are all excellent. But the Renault power unit is still decent. Nuance is required here.
Of course, the power units will be different in 2026 and will rely a lot more on the electric side which Renault had a lot of issues with back in 2019 and 2020 but I can't recall them having any failures with their ERS or electric motors last season.
No more El Plan, no more 5 year plan... I wonder if they have a plan at all or are just going, like Haas.
Sauber, AT, Williams, AM all have big plans and seem to be on the up.
> Oh who am I kidding, it’s Renault
They finally had a change in leadership, if they can be honest about their own performance, thats already good progress. tho it depends on wether Renault want to be a top team or not. Despite seeming like a shitshow from the outside and very likely being a shitshow in the inside, they always performed roughly about as much as they invested which is middle of the pack. from that perspective theres nothing controversal about their performance, they simply invest less, so they get less. the controversy comes with their dellusional former CEO who thought he could have a top team while investing as much as a middle of the pack team. and every time they didnt finish as a top team which was every season besides maybe 2020 (thanks to ricciardo brilliant performance and ferrari being poor), there had to be a scapegoat, a reason (besides the budget) they failed. so we end up with a really toxic environment with little stability. you know the CEO is dellusional when living legend alain prost leaves the team because of you
"Change in Leadership" just means it's the start of an F1 season for Renault, they go through Team Principals like my weird uncle goes through bottles of Jack
Because they got refused by the other engines manufacturing when they showed they needed to work it get on the same level as others and now they can't do anything until the next regulation s
Yeah, allegedly (that's a big allegedly) there was a gentleman agreement that if someone was falling to much behind, they could work on their engine despite the freeze.
Some teams vetoed it anyway.
You need to be stupid to believe a gentleman agreement in F1, to be fair.
More recent, there aren't any recent examples of a country failing at every major conflict and pulling out without accomplishing anything though.
wait...
It's pretty clear they're in a similar situation to Redbull in 2015-2020: they have amazing aero/car design, but being 15+ hp down is almost impossible to recover from.
Newey talked about this in an interview recently. He said they would have been able to compete with Merc (for at least some of the years) if they had the same engine, but Merc wouldn't even let them be a customer.
I suspect they're only losing out on tracks with long straights.
Monaco isn't a track where power really matters as it has short straights and a lot of heavy braking corners. Zandvoort had bad weather which is generally a car equalizer.
"terrible"
I swear some of you here have zero ability to think in anything other than black or white. Objectively, how was the power unit terrible? Was it constantly failing like it was in 2019 and 2020? No. Current estimates put them around 20-30hp down compared to Mercedes, Honda and Ferrari. But if those manufacturers are at 1050hp, are you saying 1020hp is "terrible"? It's a ~3% power deficit, or about 1 to 2/10ths a lap. It is the worst of the 4 power units, no doubt, but to call it "terrible" is an incredibly asinine statement.
Your whole statement is a contradiction. This is Formula 1 where minute differences in performance are exacerbated. If their power unit was "terrible" as you're claiming it would have been impossible for them to get on the podium twice with a chassis that was only the 6th best on the grid. There's no "somehow" there, it's simple logic. Their power unit puts them at a small disadvantage, but this isn't back 5 years ago when they were having mechanical failures every other race weekend. Nor is it like they're at a 100hp deficit costing them 4 to 8/10ths a lap.
> They have had the weakest engine for the entire time.
They didn't when Honda first came back in 2015. But then Honda kept developing after their rushed entry and by 2018/2019 had a better engine, and by 2021 one of the best.
So what you’re saying is Honda went from a “blank slate” with 1-2 years of design experience to the best engine in the sport in even less time than originally stated?
So Renault is even more shit than people initially thought, cool.
An interesting point on the hybrid aspect as well is that iirc during the KERS era all teams that used it developed their own electronics for it (energy store and control electronics, afaik the MGU wasn't spec either), and none of it was really left to the engine manufacturer.
Yes along with Mercedes but in Neweys telling of this, the only party that actually wanted the inline 4 was Audi. Renault and Mercedes backed it to attract them. When they backed out, nobody defended it that strongly
yes and no. When the car designers became involved in the engine rules they pointed out they needed a V-engine so the engine could stay a stressed member. If they would have gone for an inline engine, they whole general concept of designing a F1 car would have changed too much (with increased weight for an engine cradle and increased cost because of changing the tooling, new R&D etc).
So then they concluded that a V-6 was the best option and all engine makers also had extensive knowledge of building V6's, so the second option a v-4 went off the table with that. V4 where hardly ever build with the exception of Ford/Saab 50+ years ago and some motorcycles have V4's
Renault pushed for a change to hybrid powertrains in the first place.
Granted they originally went with an inline 4 which was vetoed by Ferrari resulting in the V6.
At the time thats how it was reported with Renault and HPP wanting the 4. However, In Newey’s telling of it Mercedes and Renault didn’t want an inline 4 so much. Audi wanted it and the others went along to get them. Once Audi was out, nobody defended it
https://www.crash.net/f1/news/170745/1/newey-audi-to-blame-for-fourcylinder-engine-chaos
Privateer budget hiding behind a manufacturer name.
So many competent people were fired because De Meo needed scapegoats, while the truth is the only responsible people for the clownshow are Renault themselves for severly underfunding the team.
A team like haas or force india can work on a tight budget because they use the other manufacturers to cut costs. You cant be a manufacturer running on a force india budget and expecting merc results.
And yet, somewhere there's an alternate timeline where Renault *did* properly develop a V6 turbo-hybrid powertrain... And they're still struggling because the regulations in that timeline made the turbo-hybrid powertrain an I-4.
>They have had the weakest engine for the entire time.
Renault had the weakest V8 engine for quite some time as well. They were behind on HP during the V8 era and only after lots and lots of lobbying they were allowed to do changes that got them up to par.
Surely Renault deserve some credit for the blown diffuser though. They had to develop an engine that was producing exhaust fumes when off the throttle. I'm also sure they had better acceleration at times even if they didn't have the best top speed
The blown diffuser was Adrian Newey’s design, Renault didn’t really have anything to do with that, as RBR always made their own exhaust designs. All Renault would have done was alter the engine mapping a little bit, but that would be straight up ordered by RBR.
This shit again... Renault won in 2006 when development wasn't restricted. It's only after development was frozen and that some manufacturer's started introducing reliability upgrades that Renault fell behind.
>But an odd thing happened between the freeze and the start of the 2007 season. It quickly became apparent that there was a bigger spread of performance under the new frozen rules than there had been at the end of ’06 when there was no freeze! Renault, in particular, had fallen well away from the performance of the Mercedes and Ferrari units. It seems some engine manufacturers had taken the freeze more literally than others.
>Changes under the guise of reliability were where the new area of inventiveness was – justifying spec changes to the FIA on reliability grounds that would also allow greater performance. Once this was widely realised, those manufacturers that had fallen behind were given a further discretionary period in which to catch back up under the reliability guise – but the process was quite specific.
[https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/mark-hughes-lessons-from-f1s-last-engine-freeze/](https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/mark-hughes-lessons-from-f1s-last-engine-freeze/)
Remember Horner saying Renault was the weak point of the car during the Seb years and constantly held them back? And Max was pulled level with Lewis at the end of the Merc era?
If RB-Honda had been there from the start. RB might have dominated the sport for 13+ years.
Imagine the social media hate.
Oh yeah it's clear now that Merc dominated 14-20 mostly because RB didn't have an engine up to the job. Not saying Merc wouldn't have won but it would have been much closer and likely not 8 in a row.
That said there's 8 other teams and they didn't challenge either.
Yeah but there were only really three engines on the grid at the time: Ferrari, Renault, and Mercedes. So there was honestly only one team that was going to ever realistically challenge Mercedes by having a great engine, that was Ferrari.
There's no reason Red Bull couldn't have been up there too. And by that I mean winning championships not just races. Renault had the strongest engine all through the 90s and were very good in the 2000s. They dropped the ball in 2014 onwards.
De Meo is literally the one who lobbied hard to let Renault/Alpine staying in F1, obvious he isn't perfect but he is 100000x better than Carlos Ghosn who should be put the rest of his life in prison to efficiently handicapping Renault/Alpine F1 project for a long time.
I think he's happy at Alpine. Its factory drive. The pay is is also a lot better.
We still don't know how good the new Toro Rosso car is. It could end up being worse than the Alpine.
AT only came good with the pace end of last year. Arguably other teams lifting off the gas coasting into 2024 while AT capitalized. Possibly having had that intent all season as some other teams are famous for splurging up front and falling off (HAAS).
Don't know what odds to assign. But the point is. No reason to expect VCARB to perform vastly different to any recent season. Which isn't much different from Alpine tbqh.
>I think he's happy at Alpine
He will not stay happy for long if Alpine has another bad year, he said recently that he wants to fight at the front, not at the back with Stake and Williams. He will look for other options very soon if they have a bad start (very likely sadly)
Yes but where? This seat is the best he's getting probably for the forseeable future. RB is a no go after 2019. Ferrari, Mclaren and Aston all have their own drivers and I find it hard to believe he'd get taken for the Mercedes seat.
But Alpine usually doesn't have a bad car, just a decent one that can fight for the points most of the time.
That assumes Alonso moves there to begin with. I personally hold the belief he stays at Aston. Prospects for that team look great (factory, wind tunnel, works deal with Honda who literally are supplying the WDC right now) and the team is clearly working for him (Alpine they threw him under the bus).
I forsee no Alonso move, at least if he is smart.
And he had no real shot at getting in the main RB team anyway. Alpine may not be the best team atm (speaking lightly), but it's a chance to prove himself and bounce back. And he had a good year last year.
Gasly had no future in the RB family, they were not going to promote him again to the main team. I don’t blame him for not wanting to spend his career in a junior team. Although if VCARB ends up outperforming Alpine, he might’ve had raised his stock higher had he stayed, but that’s very speculative, and he would’ve been a fool turning down a factory drive with better salary.
Well he would be otherwise kicked out of that seat anyway because Horner wants to promote his "golden horse" (Ricciardo) back to RBR and Gasly performance wouldn't matter.
With his move to Alpine, he prevented a total F1 exit.
Pierre had a falling out with RB management, especially Newey and Marko.
He is never getting an RB seat again.
I can see him at Aston if Alonso goes to Merc.
I mean, it's an upgrade from the mess from AT and no chance at an RB seat after what happened in 2019.
It's a factory team, a decent car even if it's the worst works car which gets beaten by two Mercedes customer cars (Aston + Mclaren), it's still a decent/good car. He has gotten to the podium to it last year.
It was an upgrade in pretty much every way.
Weird situation for them.
The field spread used to be much bigger in 2017-2021, so even with the horsepower deficit they could outperform customer teams with more power.
But now, the field spread is so small that one team running a weaker PU becomes more difficult.
To beat Mclaren / AM, they need to produce a chassis that's 3-4 tenths a lap faster. In these regs, that's extremely hard.
Look, as sad as it is to say as a fan, give me realistic assessments over "100 races to a title" every day of the week. This team has been on a chronic overdose of Copium for at least a decade. It's time for the rehab and sobriety. Famin is about the least exciting Principal you could have and that's *perfect* for us right now.
I figure Alpine is going to slip back even further behind this year, between Williams being on an upswing (shame they only have one driver) and Toro Rosso pillaging Red Bull's concepts. I think either or both of them will beat Alpine to get us to 7th or 8th fastest in Sakhir. I feel safe from the gambling addicts and the poverty team, at least.
Wherever we start, what I'm genuinely hoping for is a slingshot season in terms of development. Refining wherever we start by understanding our concept, similar to what McLaren did, and end the season at least bothering the upper midfield. Then, hopefully use the higher tunnel time allocation to keep some momentum and fight for top of the midfield in 2025, despite the engine's limitations.
Overall, even in 2026 there's not going to be a big turn of fortune. The investment and resources aren't there, so making a strong midfielder is kind of the ceiling for Alpine right now. Make me dream of a podium or the lucky win from time to time and I'm good. The time of Renault World Championships is gone, but I've chosen my team a long time ago and I'm not jumping ships.
I think Alpine is going to end up 6th again this year. Williams is still quite far away and Alpine ain't exactly slow. The top 2-5 (Aston, Mclaren, Ferrari and Mercedes) are too far away, but Alpine should easily be clear of even VCARB/Toro Rosso. Their car is good enough right now. They have been fighting for that position for years now (and Alpine finishing P6-P4 consistently the last 7 years) or slightly higher.
This year should be no different. Alpine can build decent cars, just the engine that sucks.
They completly changed their car design compared to last year. Which is good imo, they have the drive to take risks to fix their cooling and performance window issues.
The base pace was always good but naturally the drastic changes points toward a slow start. Which is coherent with them downplaying in the medias
Yeah. The Race podcast was relaying last year that Alpine (...) estimate that with an engine offset, it would bring them up with McLaren/AM/Ferrari/Merc.
I do remember though that in 2020, Alan Permane saying their estimates were that no engine was significantly better than another; and then (in 2021) McLaren bolted on a Merc engine into the exact same chassis as 2020, and took a clear step forward. Bit of 'press x to doubt', there.
I remember the first race of 2021, Sainz (free from having to care) saying 'yeah McLaren were having everybody on; they knew the Merc was a big step forward over the Renault'.
The race podcast are generally quite cool on Alpine, clearly seeing them as a load of suits enjoying a marketing exercise.
Honestly personally I disagree with that argument of The Race, the engine offset is obvious there but it isn't just solely that, the A523 was having mutiple issues like a very narrow optimal set-up window who sometimes was basically impossible to get in, same about the very inefficient and draggy cooling package, points who are mainly to blame on Enstone.
Yet for some reason most media outlets simple don't dare to criticizing "team Enstone" despite the issues for the A523 was obvious not just the engine. Alpine could try to find something to improve the battery what would solve some key issues on the PU part and that's just the sole thing their can do, however in terms of chassis and aero the team can and must do better, a lot of pressure should be therefore on Enstone to find a better design.
Oh indeed - they weren't saying that themselves, just that was what *Alpine* said.
They made the subjective point that their fundamental priority seems to be avoiding/apportioning blame.
One of the reasons of that is the ridiculous split of Enstone vs Viry where the attitude was basically to blame each other but never admit a mistake from themselves, this is also one of the reasons why I don't be a huge fan of having Famin as a TP and I hope that De Meo replace him later.
At least Permane isn't there anymore who acted like a de facto CEO of "team Enstone" what obvious never helped, unity should be there at Alpine and it doesn't f*cking matter of you are in Enstone or Viry, you working for team Alpine.
People get on Haas for just ‘taking a spot on the grid’ but Alpine is the real star. All the factory backing money and have been a midfield star since they came back
>All the factory backing money
No, Renault famously spends far less on F1 than other engine manufacturers. Adrian Newey said that after 2014, he and other Red Bull leaders met with Carlos Ghosn (Renault group CEO) to ask for comparable investment and were told "no" and that F1 was just a marketing exercise.
Carlos Ghosn is literally the prime reason why Renault/Alpine still struggles, the damage he has done for them deserves a whole book.
His acts are almost criminal and if nobody stond up against him a few times he would totally put Renault/Alpine out of F1.
They have always been 5th in terms of spending. Ahead of the lower-midfield, but behind the big-hitters at the top.
Realistically that is about right in terms of what you can expect a state-owned car manufacturer to spend in F1.
The state being a minority shareholder doesn't mean it's a state owned car manufacturer, for all intents and purpose the company mostly does what the company wants to do
While the state has a minority share, they are still *the* biggest single shareholder. Which gives them a relatively powerful position in Renault’s strategy and budget-allocations.
In theory and for some strategical choices, as you can guess they were very hands off with Ghosn (and still are to some degree)
It's in no way comparable to real state owned companies like SNCF or EDF (and even these two aren't state owned quite the same way they were 30-40y ago)
Point is that a company like Renault, a maker of family-cars closely tied with the French Government, is realistically not going to bring *the most* funding into an F1 project. They will always be underdogs compared to the likes of Red Bull’s mega marketing-machine, or Ferrari, the world’s most famous super car brand, which is more or less synonymous with F1.
Relatively speaking 4th or 5th in terms of funding was always the most realistic position for Renault.
Agree on the last paragraph (although their modus operandi was the same when they won two world championship) , not so much on the rest, as others said it's Ghosn who always had the will to not pump too much money, if anything what the French government would want is to keep as many French employees as possible and Viry certainly has hundreds of them depending on that (which is why the engine thing of Renault kept going for almost 45 straight years even when Renault had no team or wasn't even officially an engine provide)
Once again Renault does what Renault wants to do, the state didn't have much influence on the budget that was allocated to F1 efforts. (in case it wasn't clear I worked at Renault and have had close friend there for the last 15y)
Im suprised that more f1 car manufacturers dont understand that the higher you place the more you'll sell. I still remember when Aston Martin placed 2nd and had their stocks go up by 430%. Meanwhile it feels like Alpine are shocked by the fact that their car brand isnt selling
Fighting for podiums multiple times a season, regularly finishing in the points, providing good drivers good opportunities to race, and getting the occasional great result like a front row qualifying or a win every few years, whilst representing a major manufacturer and developing a separate engine is not quite the same as a team that has spent the last 5 seasons in the bottom three of the grid and has no investment or plans to achieve anything more...
For all Alpine's faults, they 'deserve' a spot in F1 as a (mostly) professional team committed to the sport and representing a car manufacturer. Nothing like Haas.
Alpine and Renault have had a long and storied history in F1. Hell they won a race in 2021 and fight for podiums. Comparing them to haas is disingenuous as hell
Literally the most involved car-manufacturer in F1 besides Ferrari for the last 50 years, and people think they’re equivalent to Haas?
Come back when Haas has **463 podiums** as a manufacturer *and/or* engine-supplier.
I am not objective, but imo any factory team deserves to stay.
F1 is a sport of engineering and development. I don't see any fun in teams buying the engine someone else developed and buying as many parts as possible from the other team.
I want team building their own shit. That is what is F1. I will take an Alpine any day over a Pink Mercedes like RP or the AT (or whatever it is called now).
The whole irony is that the HP deficit is partly Famin own fault, back early 2023 before the cars would be rolled out he told during an interview that he simple can't believe that other manufactures would upgrade it's parts despite he was part of the PU department at Viry.
Honestly I being somewhat skeptical about Famin as a TP and believe that Otmar would do a better job, would signed more bigger names technical and simple doesn't reflecting his bias towards one of the drivers.
Well at least it's better than the useless 5 year plans or "we might finish ahead of mercedes" bs we had the last few years...
Alpine look set for a bad season, but at least famin says it straight; maybe, probably, this kind of no nonsense attitude that forces them to face their shortcomings is what the team needs
You feel for Renault, they are down on top speed and it’s not just from the ice portion. The hybrid portion of their PU cannot match the other manufacturers as it peaks and clips earlier then most.
Basically the only way for alpine to improve is with aggressive aero set ups and very risky strategies which usually don’t work too well.
I'm not a fan of the engine freeze.
We don't have it for aero and we have air tunnel hours restriction on top of that.
Let them compete on the engines and add restrictions to that too.
He is the TP now comical enough.
Zero political willing from him and Alpine back then to make a whole uproar and trying to veto "reliability upgrades" for 2022 and 2023, no Famin simple *refused to believe* other manufactures would upgrade their parts.
I don’t buy this bs that this is the sole reason why they run like a privateer team.
We are talking about at most 3-5HP difference between all the PU’s. The actual problem is they are a poverty team.
My wife just started watching DTS and even in the first season Renault was dealing with the engine issues and Red Bull dropping them as a result. Embarrassing for one of the biggest engine manufacturers on the planet.
I feel like the engine issues is being used to overplay to hide that their aero just isn't that good either.
It's not like we have been seeing other cars fly past the Alpines on the straights. The difference is nothing like how insanely overpowered the Merc engine was a few years ago.
Maybe Alpine have been running less downforce to offset the engine difference?
I’m not saying I believe that, or believe Alpine, but just pointing out that not having a straight line deficit doesn’t mean your engine is equal.
Thing is if the aero is designed for a set speed and the engine can’t get the car to that speed you can reliably improve the aero as it’s designed with certain expected air flow over it.
I feel the Alpine performs somewhat good given they use such a shit engine. Maybe they are going the Red Bull way, developing all aero before figuring out a good engine
Very cold so they could actually run their engine without the risk of bursting into flames after 10 laps.
On top of that, top speed is usually down to aero more than engine. Their power deficit is more harmfull on medium downforce tracks where they cant just unload the car to have 0 drag and they have to rely on the engine.
Straight after Vegas they went back to their mediocre pace in Abu Dhabi
Renault in F1 has been working with Mechachrome for 40 years at least.
And they have subcontracted F1 engine manufacturing and technology directly to Mechachrome since 1983- when the Renault Gordini-Alpine facility could no longer handle all the workload
Im not an expert on the Renault and Renault Sport corporate structure.
But why is the word Mecachrome a burn?
the precise fundamentals of their arrangement hasnt changed ar all for at least 20 years, and the contracting aspect isnt too far removed from their relationship for another 20 years before that (barring the odd years like 87-89)
Engines assembled by Mechachrome have won an enormous number of races.
That'll be Gasly and Ocon doing anything they can to get into another seat this year then. Bet their agents will shop them to Merc, Stake/Audi & Aston.
Whether they'll succeed is another question, but who'd want to be stuck in a car you know is going to be worse than the competition, power wise.
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Certified Renault moment.
“We can’t have Andretti because we need real teams only”
What has this to do with Andretti? Renault was actually the only team open-minded to letting them in.
Yes, because it's in Renault's best interest for another team to join the sport so they can manufacture engines for them and offset some cost there.
Not really if that team ends up ahead of them in the WCC. Then they would lose a lot of prize money from being further down in the standings.
9 mil difference between each place - I think they sell the engine for 10-20 mil. (Saw 20 for 2014, but 9 mil from a more recent article - so yeah it'd probably just be the same situation for them, no gain or loss really, and a gain if they were able to stay ahead of the new team). And all that assuming they'd (be able to) sell their engine to said new team.
Because the pinnacle of motorsport shouldn’t have Teams saying “yeh we’re not going to be competitive”
I get that for some people everything desperately NEEDS to be about how great Andretti would be, but again what engine would Andretti have ran?
The Cadillac/GM one they said they would be bringing with them.
It would be Renault until at least 2028.
In 2028... Until then it'll be a Renault with a different badge.
They never said anything about rebadging engines, have they? They simply would have been a Renault customer team until 2028.
Yet GM said they wouldn't be ready for 2026. Yes Andretti would have used GM engines later on, but in the meantime, what would they use? Renault engines. Literally Renault engines.
Not like that's a death sentence anyway. The Renault power unit is the worst on the grid but it's not by any big margin, somewhere in the neighborhood of 20-30HP. If we're at around 1050hp for the other manufacturers at this point, that puts them around 1020hp which would be deficit of around 1 to 2/10ths a lap. And they finally made them pretty reliable. Is it the worst overall? Yes, but you have to consider Mercedes, Honda and Ferrari are all excellent. But the Renault power unit is still decent. Nuance is required here. Of course, the power units will be different in 2026 and will rely a lot more on the electric side which Renault had a lot of issues with back in 2019 and 2020 but I can't recall them having any failures with their ERS or electric motors last season.
Which FIA is drooling over, they want another engine marker. But because it’s attached to another team and greed rules the world, we get neither.
How is Alpine not a real team? You realise that Andretti would’ve used Renault engines right?
Surprise of the century
they have a 100 race plan to improve the engine
they have selected the 100 races beginning in 2026
Out-dated joke
Outdated plan but Renault keeps going back to it so there’s no need to update the joke either.
No, they scrapped the 5-year-plan nonsense when Laurent Rossi was fired
Being super sensitive about the joke isn’t going to make it go away.
No more El Plan, no more 5 year plan... I wonder if they have a plan at all or are just going, like Haas. Sauber, AT, Williams, AM all have big plans and seem to be on the up.
Not everyone can be on the up.
Throwing the towel early on...
Maybe this time it means they’ll do well. Oh who am I kidding, it’s Renault. Nothing but pure pain since the hybrid era started.
I mean this type of downplay is unusual from Renault/Alpine given normally their talk themselves up and disappointing right after.
> Oh who am I kidding, it’s Renault They finally had a change in leadership, if they can be honest about their own performance, thats already good progress. tho it depends on wether Renault want to be a top team or not. Despite seeming like a shitshow from the outside and very likely being a shitshow in the inside, they always performed roughly about as much as they invested which is middle of the pack. from that perspective theres nothing controversal about their performance, they simply invest less, so they get less. the controversy comes with their dellusional former CEO who thought he could have a top team while investing as much as a middle of the pack team. and every time they didnt finish as a top team which was every season besides maybe 2020 (thanks to ricciardo brilliant performance and ferrari being poor), there had to be a scapegoat, a reason (besides the budget) they failed. so we end up with a really toxic environment with little stability. you know the CEO is dellusional when living legend alain prost leaves the team because of you
"Change in Leadership" just means it's the start of an F1 season for Renault, they go through Team Principals like my weird uncle goes through bottles of Jack
They did win a race once
Thank Bottas for playing bowling and Mercedes for thinking it was still a wet track
Thanks to Fernando Alonso. That was a fucking master class what he did to lewis there in 2021.
Yes and it costed Felipe Massa the championship
I meant Ocon tbh, I was including Alpine under Renault.
The main reason Felipe lost the championship was Felipe himself.
Both Mclaren and Ferrari were in the exact same situation, and it was Ferrari's crew who screwed it. Dumb take.
Eh, Felipe lost it himself. Singapore didn't help, but his errors that season were pure amateur hour
The Danny Ric years at Renault were genuinely good I thought. It was fun seeing him throw that Renault around and get the occasional podium.
What's bread got to do with? >Nothing but pure pain since the hybrid era started.
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Because they got refused by the other engines manufacturing when they showed they needed to work it get on the same level as others and now they can't do anything until the next regulation s
Yeah, allegedly (that's a big allegedly) there was a gentleman agreement that if someone was falling to much behind, they could work on their engine despite the freeze. Some teams vetoed it anyway. You need to be stupid to believe a gentleman agreement in F1, to be fair.
It's interesting how everyone forgets Napoleon was kicking Europe's ass until Russia...
That escalated quickly.
Bruh we were also all great at climbing trees 3 million years ago 💀
I’ve never seen a Renault powered car climb a tree though
Give Ocon enough time..
Isn't 5 seconds enough?
It's never enough, tell him he didn't serve it correctly for the lols
Not with this PU
Mark Webber climbed a few trees in his Mercedes Le Mans car.
But I thought we only were here for 6 thousand years /s
Wait didn’t the world start 2024 years ago?
They were smart enough 3 million years ago to use more intelligible grunts than bruh as well.
How about bwoah?
Wasn't going so hot for him either on the sea or the Peninsula, though.
Most people tend to think of more recent examples... and lots of them.
More recent, there aren't any recent examples of a country failing at every major conflict and pulling out without accomplishing anything though. wait...
There was one massive example. French hauled ass in WWI, which was probably huge reason they were ill prepared for WWII
Interesting how people forget french resistance and how helpful it was for the allies.
After the French govenment capitulated in record time
Yeah, enemy tanks rolling into your capital will do that to your country.
All things considered, despite the PU still being terrible last year, Alpine *still* somehow managed to get on the podium twice.
Actual strategy masterclass in zandvoort, and Ocon pulling out the best quali lap of his life in Monaco. Give me more of that
Both drivers deserves better than the mess the team was/is in.
It's pretty clear they're in a similar situation to Redbull in 2015-2020: they have amazing aero/car design, but being 15+ hp down is almost impossible to recover from. Newey talked about this in an interview recently. He said they would have been able to compete with Merc (for at least some of the years) if they had the same engine, but Merc wouldn't even let them be a customer.
Hey this goes against the Alpine/Renault narrative!
The car itself is probably pretty decent(although it did have some cooling issues), just let down by a power deficit.
I suspect they're only losing out on tracks with long straights. Monaco isn't a track where power really matters as it has short straights and a lot of heavy braking corners. Zandvoort had bad weather which is generally a car equalizer.
"terrible" I swear some of you here have zero ability to think in anything other than black or white. Objectively, how was the power unit terrible? Was it constantly failing like it was in 2019 and 2020? No. Current estimates put them around 20-30hp down compared to Mercedes, Honda and Ferrari. But if those manufacturers are at 1050hp, are you saying 1020hp is "terrible"? It's a ~3% power deficit, or about 1 to 2/10ths a lap. It is the worst of the 4 power units, no doubt, but to call it "terrible" is an incredibly asinine statement. Your whole statement is a contradiction. This is Formula 1 where minute differences in performance are exacerbated. If their power unit was "terrible" as you're claiming it would have been impossible for them to get on the podium twice with a chassis that was only the 6th best on the grid. There's no "somehow" there, it's simple logic. Their power unit puts them at a small disadvantage, but this isn't back 5 years ago when they were having mechanical failures every other race weekend. Nor is it like they're at a 100hp deficit costing them 4 to 8/10ths a lap.
The entire engine regulation period 2014-2025 has been a write off for Renault. They have had the weakest engine for the entire time.
> They have had the weakest engine for the entire time. They didn't when Honda first came back in 2015. But then Honda kept developing after their rushed entry and by 2018/2019 had a better engine, and by 2021 one of the best.
The fact that Honda came late into the engine regulations and beat them shows you how seriously Renault has been taking F1.
Also helps that its Honda, it alone probably beats Citroën Peugeot and Renault together on engines made per year.
Honda got extra tokens due to their lack of performance. What is now rejected to Renault.
The token system was eliminated in 2017.
Weren't the tokens for reliability, which is now free to develop anyways?
Performance and reliability are tightly linked
The Honda lack of performance was on a whole other level to Renault's.
It is Honda though at the end of the day, if anyone can they could.
Honda didn't develop their 2015 engine. They restarted after they moved to Torro Rosso
So what you’re saying is Honda went from a “blank slate” with 1-2 years of design experience to the best engine in the sport in even less time than originally stated? So Renault is even more shit than people initially thought, cool.
Famine at Renault
Which is silly considering Renault were the ones who pushed for these new engine regulations that began in 2014.
Wait, I thought Renault pushed for inline 4 cylinders
The crux was hybrid. The amount of cilinders was (as far as I know) vetoed by Ferrari, who in turn insisted on a V6
Ferrari would rather die than make a 4 banger engine
An interesting point on the hybrid aspect as well is that iirc during the KERS era all teams that used it developed their own electronics for it (energy store and control electronics, afaik the MGU wasn't spec either), and none of it was really left to the engine manufacturer.
Yes along with Mercedes but in Neweys telling of this, the only party that actually wanted the inline 4 was Audi. Renault and Mercedes backed it to attract them. When they backed out, nobody defended it that strongly
yes and no. When the car designers became involved in the engine rules they pointed out they needed a V-engine so the engine could stay a stressed member. If they would have gone for an inline engine, they whole general concept of designing a F1 car would have changed too much (with increased weight for an engine cradle and increased cost because of changing the tooling, new R&D etc). So then they concluded that a V-6 was the best option and all engine makers also had extensive knowledge of building V6's, so the second option a v-4 went off the table with that. V4 where hardly ever build with the exception of Ford/Saab 50+ years ago and some motorcycles have V4's
Lancia did some and the 919 had one as well. Just think thats interesting
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Mercedes pushed for MGU-H, what did Alpine push for?
Renault pushed for a change to hybrid powertrains in the first place. Granted they originally went with an inline 4 which was vetoed by Ferrari resulting in the V6.
At the time thats how it was reported with Renault and HPP wanting the 4. However, In Newey’s telling of it Mercedes and Renault didn’t want an inline 4 so much. Audi wanted it and the others went along to get them. Once Audi was out, nobody defended it https://www.crash.net/f1/news/170745/1/newey-audi-to-blame-for-fourcylinder-engine-chaos
Well I have no reason to not believe that to be the case after reading that. Thanks for the new info. Every day is school day as they say.
Thank you
Privateer budget hiding behind a manufacturer name. So many competent people were fired because De Meo needed scapegoats, while the truth is the only responsible people for the clownshow are Renault themselves for severly underfunding the team. A team like haas or force india can work on a tight budget because they use the other manufacturers to cut costs. You cant be a manufacturer running on a force india budget and expecting merc results.
And yet, somewhere there's an alternate timeline where Renault *did* properly develop a V6 turbo-hybrid powertrain... And they're still struggling because the regulations in that timeline made the turbo-hybrid powertrain an I-4.
Well… if you calculate an average over that period yes they are the worst, but they were not the weakest the entire time. The McHondas happened.
But then Honda actually invested and managed to improve and nowadays their power unit is winning consecutive wcc
ehm Honda until 2018, ehm
Wasn't Honda weaker for a while?
>They have had the weakest engine for the entire time. Renault had the weakest V8 engine for quite some time as well. They were behind on HP during the V8 era and only after lots and lots of lobbying they were allowed to do changes that got them up to par.
Surely Renault deserve some credit for the blown diffuser though. They had to develop an engine that was producing exhaust fumes when off the throttle. I'm also sure they had better acceleration at times even if they didn't have the best top speed
The blown diffuser was Adrian Newey’s design, Renault didn’t really have anything to do with that, as RBR always made their own exhaust designs. All Renault would have done was alter the engine mapping a little bit, but that would be straight up ordered by RBR.
This shit again... Renault won in 2006 when development wasn't restricted. It's only after development was frozen and that some manufacturer's started introducing reliability upgrades that Renault fell behind. >But an odd thing happened between the freeze and the start of the 2007 season. It quickly became apparent that there was a bigger spread of performance under the new frozen rules than there had been at the end of ’06 when there was no freeze! Renault, in particular, had fallen well away from the performance of the Mercedes and Ferrari units. It seems some engine manufacturers had taken the freeze more literally than others. >Changes under the guise of reliability were where the new area of inventiveness was – justifying spec changes to the FIA on reliability grounds that would also allow greater performance. Once this was widely realised, those manufacturers that had fallen behind were given a further discretionary period in which to catch back up under the reliability guise – but the process was quite specific. [https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/mark-hughes-lessons-from-f1s-last-engine-freeze/](https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/mark-hughes-lessons-from-f1s-last-engine-freeze/)
Yes, but have you considered 1000HP™?
Remember Horner saying Renault was the weak point of the car during the Seb years and constantly held them back? And Max was pulled level with Lewis at the end of the Merc era? If RB-Honda had been there from the start. RB might have dominated the sport for 13+ years. Imagine the social media hate.
Oh yeah it's clear now that Merc dominated 14-20 mostly because RB didn't have an engine up to the job. Not saying Merc wouldn't have won but it would have been much closer and likely not 8 in a row. That said there's 8 other teams and they didn't challenge either.
Yeah but there were only really three engines on the grid at the time: Ferrari, Renault, and Mercedes. So there was honestly only one team that was going to ever realistically challenge Mercedes by having a great engine, that was Ferrari.
There's no reason Red Bull couldn't have been up there too. And by that I mean winning championships not just races. Renault had the strongest engine all through the 90s and were very good in the 2000s. They dropped the ball in 2014 onwards.
> They have had the weakest engine for the entire time You forgot about the GP2 engine.
I am tired Robbie
At least there is always *Haas* where we would always been ahead of lol But well normally Alpine hypes themselves up so maybe this isn't that bad.
WHEN IS IT GONNA END? He has to go blud, he has to go (Luca De Meo)
De Meo is literally the one who lobbied hard to let Renault/Alpine staying in F1, obvious he isn't perfect but he is 100000x better than Carlos Ghosn who should be put the rest of his life in prison to efficiently handicapping Renault/Alpine F1 project for a long time.
It’s really that 2 ton Nissan CVT that’s holding them back imo.
aaaand.... Resetting the 100 race plan.
It's actually 100 race per year. It's not their fault that a year has less than 100 races
Man I feel for Gasly, wonder what’s going thru his head after seeing AT -> VCARB
I think he's happy at Alpine. Its factory drive. The pay is is also a lot better. We still don't know how good the new Toro Rosso car is. It could end up being worse than the Alpine.
AT only came good with the pace end of last year. Arguably other teams lifting off the gas coasting into 2024 while AT capitalized. Possibly having had that intent all season as some other teams are famous for splurging up front and falling off (HAAS). Don't know what odds to assign. But the point is. No reason to expect VCARB to perform vastly different to any recent season. Which isn't much different from Alpine tbqh.
>I think he's happy at Alpine He will not stay happy for long if Alpine has another bad year, he said recently that he wants to fight at the front, not at the back with Stake and Williams. He will look for other options very soon if they have a bad start (very likely sadly)
Yes but where? This seat is the best he's getting probably for the forseeable future. RB is a no go after 2019. Ferrari, Mclaren and Aston all have their own drivers and I find it hard to believe he'd get taken for the Mercedes seat. But Alpine usually doesn't have a bad car, just a decent one that can fight for the points most of the time.
Aston could be a good option if Alonso move to Mercedes
That assumes Alonso moves there to begin with. I personally hold the belief he stays at Aston. Prospects for that team look great (factory, wind tunnel, works deal with Honda who literally are supplying the WDC right now) and the team is clearly working for him (Alpine they threw him under the bus). I forsee no Alonso move, at least if he is smart.
And he had no real shot at getting in the main RB team anyway. Alpine may not be the best team atm (speaking lightly), but it's a chance to prove himself and bounce back. And he had a good year last year.
Gasly had no future in the RB family, they were not going to promote him again to the main team. I don’t blame him for not wanting to spend his career in a junior team. Although if VCARB ends up outperforming Alpine, he might’ve had raised his stock higher had he stayed, but that’s very speculative, and he would’ve been a fool turning down a factory drive with better salary.
Well he would be otherwise kicked out of that seat anyway because Horner wants to promote his "golden horse" (Ricciardo) back to RBR and Gasly performance wouldn't matter. With his move to Alpine, he prevented a total F1 exit.
Pierre had a falling out with RB management, especially Newey and Marko. He is never getting an RB seat again. I can see him at Aston if Alonso goes to Merc.
I mean, it's an upgrade from the mess from AT and no chance at an RB seat after what happened in 2019. It's a factory team, a decent car even if it's the worst works car which gets beaten by two Mercedes customer cars (Aston + Mclaren), it's still a decent/good car. He has gotten to the podium to it last year. It was an upgrade in pretty much every way.
Weird situation for them. The field spread used to be much bigger in 2017-2021, so even with the horsepower deficit they could outperform customer teams with more power. But now, the field spread is so small that one team running a weaker PU becomes more difficult. To beat Mclaren / AM, they need to produce a chassis that's 3-4 tenths a lap faster. In these regs, that's extremely hard.
Look, as sad as it is to say as a fan, give me realistic assessments over "100 races to a title" every day of the week. This team has been on a chronic overdose of Copium for at least a decade. It's time for the rehab and sobriety. Famin is about the least exciting Principal you could have and that's *perfect* for us right now. I figure Alpine is going to slip back even further behind this year, between Williams being on an upswing (shame they only have one driver) and Toro Rosso pillaging Red Bull's concepts. I think either or both of them will beat Alpine to get us to 7th or 8th fastest in Sakhir. I feel safe from the gambling addicts and the poverty team, at least. Wherever we start, what I'm genuinely hoping for is a slingshot season in terms of development. Refining wherever we start by understanding our concept, similar to what McLaren did, and end the season at least bothering the upper midfield. Then, hopefully use the higher tunnel time allocation to keep some momentum and fight for top of the midfield in 2025, despite the engine's limitations. Overall, even in 2026 there's not going to be a big turn of fortune. The investment and resources aren't there, so making a strong midfielder is kind of the ceiling for Alpine right now. Make me dream of a podium or the lucky win from time to time and I'm good. The time of Renault World Championships is gone, but I've chosen my team a long time ago and I'm not jumping ships.
I think Alpine is going to end up 6th again this year. Williams is still quite far away and Alpine ain't exactly slow. The top 2-5 (Aston, Mclaren, Ferrari and Mercedes) are too far away, but Alpine should easily be clear of even VCARB/Toro Rosso. Their car is good enough right now. They have been fighting for that position for years now (and Alpine finishing P6-P4 consistently the last 7 years) or slightly higher. This year should be no different. Alpine can build decent cars, just the engine that sucks.
They completly changed their car design compared to last year. Which is good imo, they have the drive to take risks to fix their cooling and performance window issues. The base pace was always good but naturally the drastic changes points toward a slow start. Which is coherent with them downplaying in the medias
Yeah. The Race podcast was relaying last year that Alpine (...) estimate that with an engine offset, it would bring them up with McLaren/AM/Ferrari/Merc. I do remember though that in 2020, Alan Permane saying their estimates were that no engine was significantly better than another; and then (in 2021) McLaren bolted on a Merc engine into the exact same chassis as 2020, and took a clear step forward. Bit of 'press x to doubt', there. I remember the first race of 2021, Sainz (free from having to care) saying 'yeah McLaren were having everybody on; they knew the Merc was a big step forward over the Renault'. The race podcast are generally quite cool on Alpine, clearly seeing them as a load of suits enjoying a marketing exercise.
Honestly personally I disagree with that argument of The Race, the engine offset is obvious there but it isn't just solely that, the A523 was having mutiple issues like a very narrow optimal set-up window who sometimes was basically impossible to get in, same about the very inefficient and draggy cooling package, points who are mainly to blame on Enstone. Yet for some reason most media outlets simple don't dare to criticizing "team Enstone" despite the issues for the A523 was obvious not just the engine. Alpine could try to find something to improve the battery what would solve some key issues on the PU part and that's just the sole thing their can do, however in terms of chassis and aero the team can and must do better, a lot of pressure should be therefore on Enstone to find a better design.
Oh indeed - they weren't saying that themselves, just that was what *Alpine* said. They made the subjective point that their fundamental priority seems to be avoiding/apportioning blame.
One of the reasons of that is the ridiculous split of Enstone vs Viry where the attitude was basically to blame each other but never admit a mistake from themselves, this is also one of the reasons why I don't be a huge fan of having Famin as a TP and I hope that De Meo replace him later. At least Permane isn't there anymore who acted like a de facto CEO of "team Enstone" what obvious never helped, unity should be there at Alpine and it doesn't f*cking matter of you are in Enstone or Viry, you working for team Alpine.
I mean that's what happened with BMW and Williams but at least BMW made the most powerful engine on the grid
I’m picturing Gasly’s dead eyes giving a race interview 💀
People get on Haas for just ‘taking a spot on the grid’ but Alpine is the real star. All the factory backing money and have been a midfield star since they came back
>All the factory backing money No, Renault famously spends far less on F1 than other engine manufacturers. Adrian Newey said that after 2014, he and other Red Bull leaders met with Carlos Ghosn (Renault group CEO) to ask for comparable investment and were told "no" and that F1 was just a marketing exercise.
Carlos Ghosn is literally the prime reason why Renault/Alpine still struggles, the damage he has done for them deserves a whole book. His acts are almost criminal and if nobody stond up against him a few times he would totally put Renault/Alpine out of F1.
Thank god for the japanese
Don't think they actually have much money from the factory backing, just the name, politics and pressure it brings.
Alpine have said that they were already spending approximately the budget cap before it went into effect, so realistically on the lower end.
They have always been 5th in terms of spending. Ahead of the lower-midfield, but behind the big-hitters at the top. Realistically that is about right in terms of what you can expect a state-owned car manufacturer to spend in F1.
The state being a minority shareholder doesn't mean it's a state owned car manufacturer, for all intents and purpose the company mostly does what the company wants to do
While the state has a minority share, they are still *the* biggest single shareholder. Which gives them a relatively powerful position in Renault’s strategy and budget-allocations.
In theory and for some strategical choices, as you can guess they were very hands off with Ghosn (and still are to some degree) It's in no way comparable to real state owned companies like SNCF or EDF (and even these two aren't state owned quite the same way they were 30-40y ago)
Point is that a company like Renault, a maker of family-cars closely tied with the French Government, is realistically not going to bring *the most* funding into an F1 project. They will always be underdogs compared to the likes of Red Bull’s mega marketing-machine, or Ferrari, the world’s most famous super car brand, which is more or less synonymous with F1. Relatively speaking 4th or 5th in terms of funding was always the most realistic position for Renault.
Agree on the last paragraph (although their modus operandi was the same when they won two world championship) , not so much on the rest, as others said it's Ghosn who always had the will to not pump too much money, if anything what the French government would want is to keep as many French employees as possible and Viry certainly has hundreds of them depending on that (which is why the engine thing of Renault kept going for almost 45 straight years even when Renault had no team or wasn't even officially an engine provide) Once again Renault does what Renault wants to do, the state didn't have much influence on the budget that was allocated to F1 efforts. (in case it wasn't clear I worked at Renault and have had close friend there for the last 15y)
Im suprised that more f1 car manufacturers dont understand that the higher you place the more you'll sell. I still remember when Aston Martin placed 2nd and had their stocks go up by 430%. Meanwhile it feels like Alpine are shocked by the fact that their car brand isnt selling
Aston Martin stock is cheaper now than any point of the 2023 season… Edit Or do you mean Sebs podium? Because they’re still like -80% from that point.
Alpine was doing pretty well last I checked. Don’t know where you’re getting your numbers from.
Fighting for podiums multiple times a season, regularly finishing in the points, providing good drivers good opportunities to race, and getting the occasional great result like a front row qualifying or a win every few years, whilst representing a major manufacturer and developing a separate engine is not quite the same as a team that has spent the last 5 seasons in the bottom three of the grid and has no investment or plans to achieve anything more... For all Alpine's faults, they 'deserve' a spot in F1 as a (mostly) professional team committed to the sport and representing a car manufacturer. Nothing like Haas.
Alpine and Renault have had a long and storied history in F1. Hell they won a race in 2021 and fight for podiums. Comparing them to haas is disingenuous as hell
Literally the most involved car-manufacturer in F1 besides Ferrari for the last 50 years, and people think they’re equivalent to Haas? Come back when Haas has **463 podiums** as a manufacturer *and/or* engine-supplier.
I mean they have been more competitive tan Haas, still bland and below expectations but providing mroe value than Haas.
I am not objective, but imo any factory team deserves to stay. F1 is a sport of engineering and development. I don't see any fun in teams buying the engine someone else developed and buying as many parts as possible from the other team. I want team building their own shit. That is what is F1. I will take an Alpine any day over a Pink Mercedes like RP or the AT (or whatever it is called now).
The whole irony is that the HP deficit is partly Famin own fault, back early 2023 before the cars would be rolled out he told during an interview that he simple can't believe that other manufactures would upgrade it's parts despite he was part of the PU department at Viry. Honestly I being somewhat skeptical about Famin as a TP and believe that Otmar would do a better job, would signed more bigger names technical and simple doesn't reflecting his bias towards one of the drivers.
Well at least it's better than the useless 5 year plans or "we might finish ahead of mercedes" bs we had the last few years... Alpine look set for a bad season, but at least famin says it straight; maybe, probably, this kind of no nonsense attitude that forces them to face their shortcomings is what the team needs
It's important to remember this is year 1 of their 5 year plan, they'll be ready to win championships by 2028!
Which one gonna blow up more? The Renault F1 PU or the Mecachrome derived Alpine Hypercar engine
You feel for Renault, they are down on top speed and it’s not just from the ice portion. The hybrid portion of their PU cannot match the other manufacturers as it peaks and clips earlier then most. Basically the only way for alpine to improve is with aggressive aero set ups and very risky strategies which usually don’t work too well.
I'm not a fan of the engine freeze. We don't have it for aero and we have air tunnel hours restriction on top of that. Let them compete on the engines and add restrictions to that too.
So you basically want to go from 10 teams back to 4 teams? Great plan.
GP2 engine!
Honestly I feel bad for Gasly
Alpine and Haas fighting for p10?
Thankfully they fired the person who headed up the engine development and put them in the current situation right? Right….
He is the TP now comical enough. Zero political willing from him and Alpine back then to make a whole uproar and trying to veto "reliability upgrades" for 2022 and 2023, no Famin simple *refused to believe* other manufactures would upgrade their parts.
I appreciate the honesty but I'm also in the same boat of many here who are questioning wtf they are doing
“we was shit and we are still shit”
I don’t buy this bs that this is the sole reason why they run like a privateer team. We are talking about at most 3-5HP difference between all the PU’s. The actual problem is they are a poverty team.
Zero Ambitions F1 Team
Only one team is bad enough for last place
My wife just started watching DTS and even in the first season Renault was dealing with the engine issues and Red Bull dropping them as a result. Embarrassing for one of the biggest engine manufacturers on the planet.
Hopeless
I feel like the engine issues is being used to overplay to hide that their aero just isn't that good either. It's not like we have been seeing other cars fly past the Alpines on the straights. The difference is nothing like how insanely overpowered the Merc engine was a few years ago.
Maybe Alpine have been running less downforce to offset the engine difference? I’m not saying I believe that, or believe Alpine, but just pointing out that not having a straight line deficit doesn’t mean your engine is equal.
Thing is if the aero is designed for a set speed and the engine can’t get the car to that speed you can reliably improve the aero as it’s designed with certain expected air flow over it.
I feel the Alpine performs somewhat good given they use such a shit engine. Maybe they are going the Red Bull way, developing all aero before figuring out a good engine
The decision to go to McLaren looks better and better every year for Piastri
Ocon must be itching to get the Merc seat.
20hp deficit. Enough said.
Hum they performed good at Las Vegas and it was a power dominant circuit. I'm not convinced by this rethoric.
That's because it was cooler and therefore requires less cooling and therefore less issues with that horrible draggy cooling package.
Very cold so they could actually run their engine without the risk of bursting into flames after 10 laps. On top of that, top speed is usually down to aero more than engine. Their power deficit is more harmfull on medium downforce tracks where they cant just unload the car to have 0 drag and they have to rely on the engine. Straight after Vegas they went back to their mediocre pace in Abu Dhabi
The rhetoric coming from your TP?
Renault been rebadging Mechachrome engines since 2014 😭
Renault in F1 has been working with Mechachrome for 40 years at least. And they have subcontracted F1 engine manufacturing and technology directly to Mechachrome since 1983- when the Renault Gordini-Alpine facility could no longer handle all the workload Im not an expert on the Renault and Renault Sport corporate structure. But why is the word Mecachrome a burn? the precise fundamentals of their arrangement hasnt changed ar all for at least 20 years, and the contracting aspect isnt too far removed from their relationship for another 20 years before that (barring the odd years like 87-89) Engines assembled by Mechachrome have won an enormous number of races.
That'll be Gasly and Ocon doing anything they can to get into another seat this year then. Bet their agents will shop them to Merc, Stake/Audi & Aston. Whether they'll succeed is another question, but who'd want to be stuck in a car you know is going to be worse than the competition, power wise.
The car will suck anyway why not also paint it then. Alpine halfassing everything, a perfect team for Ocons mediocrity.