The shocks keep on coming during the 2024 Formula One season, kicked off by Lewis Hamilton announcing his departure from Mercedes at the end of the year. Ex-Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto has been recruited to sort out the mess at Audi who have also recruited long standing Red Bull senior team member, Jonathan Wheatley as team principal.

The chaos at Alpine has continued following the sacking of team boss Otmar Szafnaeur at last season’s Belgium GP. Bruno Famin came in as a stand in replacement, but now he will be replaced after the summer break by Oliver Oakes who founded the Hitech GP back in 2015.

Famin famously had a meltdown live on French TV, following Esteban Ocon’s collision with his team mate during the Monaco Grand Prix. He threatened “consequences” for his driver who subsequently announced days later he would be leaving the French owned F1 team.

 

 

 

Historic F1 power ends after 48 years

Alpine have yet to secure a replacement for Ocon and could promote reserve driver Mick Schumacher for 2025 although now the decision will be made by new team boss Oliver Oakes who is rumoured to favour Hitachi’s F2 driver Paul Aron who is third in the championship as it stands.

Ex-Renault team boss, Flavio Briatore was parachuted into Alpine F1 at the Spanish GP. This fired speculation that his presence indicated his role would be to find a buyer for French works outfit and that Renault would be pulling out of F1 completely.

The Italian quickly revealed he was looking for a power unit deal with Mercedes for Alpine, which clearly indicated the French engine business formed in 1977 would cease to produce F1 powertrains. Viry-Chattilon over the years have delivered for Renault 12 constructor titles and 11 drivers’ championships.

This week, the outgoing stand in team principal of Alpine confirmed the deal with Mercedes would not begin until the era of the new power unit regulations in 2026. Yet as TJ13 reported last week the staff in Viry feel betrayed with one anonymous employee suggesting to French media, the staff could walk out on strike with the result being no race engines for Alpine.

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Walk outs threatened at Renault F1

Long standing F1 journalist Joe Saward agreed in his green book diary stating: “There are very real fears in the team that this will lead to a strike and that Alpine could face a situation of not having engines at some races this year. The Renault management has not handled this well and the unions will have no qualms about giving them a public spanking to their sins… It will take some fast talking to solve this problem…”

Speaking to L’Équipe, the French newspaper, Karine Dubreucq (the union representative) now shares the feelings of the staff in Viry. “We didn’t see it coming. It is a stab in the back, a betrayal. We developed engines here that could become F1 champions 12 times, and now suddenly we can’t?”

Work towards developing the FIA’s new 2026 power units is well under way in Viry as an anonymous employee informed the French media. “We think it will be equivalent to the Mercedes engine. At worst, there is a 15bhp difference. We have redesigned everything in the turbo.”

Renault are entering unchartered waters of Formula One history. A manufacture choosing to close its F1 power unit division whilst retaining the team is unprecedented. Yet this appears to be the direction of travel since Renault CEO Luca de Meo appointed ex-team principal Flavio Briatore as his executive advisor.

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A victim of FIA bad decisions

Renault have struggled with their power units since the beginning of the V6 turbo hybrid era in 2014. They had an unhappy relationship with Red Bull (2-14-18) who switched to Honda power as soon as the McLaren deal for exclusivity ended. 

The end of Renault F1 power units looks to be another victim of the decision to retain the incredibly complex and costly hybrid power units in the next era of F1 engines. This was a direction of travel pushed by Porsche for 2026 who ironically decided against joining F1 when a potential deal with Red Bull Racing fell through.

F1 supremo Stefano Domenicali revealed his opposition to continuing with hybrid power at the announcement by the FIA of the 2026 power unit final specifications. “My personal opinion is that it would be sufficient to use climate-neutral fuel,” Domenicali said to AMuS. “However, we had to take the manufacturers’ wishes into account.

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Alpine boss to move to Viry

“Things have developed so quickly that today a decision might be different from two years ago. I am not an engineer, but I must have a vision of what the sport will look like in the future.

“I can imagine that with the next regulations, we could limit ourselves to sustainable fuel. If we are able to show that we produce zero emissions with it, we can focus on other important aspects of sustainability,” Domenicali concluded.

Bruno Famin will now be sent of to handle the transformation in Viry, where 200 of the 300 workers are deployed on the F1 project. 

“We will have a huge transformation plan of the company, putting more resources on the other motorsport programmes but also developing those new activities in high technology, then it’s not an easy thing for all the staff there and we need somebody to be fully dedicated to that project and I’m quite happy to be dedicated to that,” revealed Famin to F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast.

“I think the decision was quite easy to take. I have no problem with it. I’m very happy to have been as a team principal in Formula 1 for one year and I am not unhappy to leave.”

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An independent Alpine

It was once the case that only F1 teams which built their own power units or had works team status arrangement with a manufacturer could consistently win in Formula One. Yet over the past two seasons, McLaren have proved this is not necessarily the case, as they continue to outperform their power unit supplier Mercedes.

The departure of Renault from F1 power unit supply will send shock waves around F1 land particularly as Audi, the only new OEM to join for 2026, are reportedly struggling. That said, Honda’s success with Red Bull reversed the original corporate decision made in Japan to withdraw from F1 and focus on new road car technology.

Honda this year made their racing arm HRC independent from day to day interference from Honda HQ. It could be an independent Alpine would benefit by following suit.

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Horner tells Max: “Perez is gone

The well oiled winning machine that was Red Bull Racing in 2023 is now running with three wheels on the proverbial wagon. This season began with paddock uproar over allegations made about team boss Christian Horner’s behaviour, from which he was later cleared.

Max Verstappen added to the turmoil suggesting under certain circumstances he could leave the Milton Keynes team. He pledged his loyalty to Dr. Helmut Mark who he claimed “built the team from nothing” together with the late Red Bull energy drinks empire founder Didi Mateschitz.

The world champions began the season in their inimitable fashion winning five of the first six races, the exception being Carlos victory in Melbourne when a mechanical failure in Verstappen’s RB20 forced him to retire early in the race… READ MORE