Renault will finish its Method 1 engine programme after the 2025 season, the French automotive firm has introduced.
The choice means Renault’s Alpine staff should purchase engines from one other producer, which is anticipated to be Mercedes, from 2026.
Renault’s F1 engine facility at Viry-Chatillon in Paris will as a substitute be dedicated to improvement of electrical motor and battery applied sciences, in addition to the corporate’s remaining motorsport actions.
The transfer brings to an finish almost 50 years of historical past following Renault’s pioneering determination to enter F1 in 1977 with the game’s first turbocharged engine.
Since then, Renault has made F1 engines constantly apart from in 1987-88 and a semi-hiatus from 1998-2000.
The corporate is among the most profitable in F1. It has received as an engine provider a complete of 10 constructors’ titles and 9 drivers’ championships, with Michael Schumacher, Alain Prost, Sebastian Vettel, Nigel Mansell, Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve, and the Williams, Benetton and Crimson Bull groups.
Renault’s personal staff additionally received drivers’ and constructors’ title doubles with Fernando Alonso in 2005 and 2006.
The choice to finish the F1 engine programme comes after a decade of restricted success for Renault/Alpine in F1 for the reason that creation of hybrid power-units in 2014, and the aggressive decline of the corporate’s staff lately.
Alpine received the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix with Esteban Ocon, and completed fourth on the planet championship in 2020 and 2022, and fifth in 2021.
However final 12 months they slipped to sixth and in 2024 they’re ninth of 10 groups with six races remaining.
A press release from the Renault Group made nearly no point out of the choice to finish its F1 engine programme apart from to say that F1 actions at Viry would “proceed till the top of the 2025 season”.
In current weeks, a bunch representing the workers at Renault’s motorsport base in Paris had staged protests on the Italian Grand Prix and held talks with Renault chief govt officer Luca de Meo.
However these had no impact on a choice that had been anticipated inside F1 for some months.
Renault’s assertion stated that it might arrange an “F1 monitoring unit” which might “intention to take care of workers’ data and abilities on this sport and stay on the forefront of innovation” with the opposite initiatives to which the manufacturing unit would now be devoted.
The assertion stated all workers affected by the choice can be provided a place throughout the new construction, which has been named Alpine Hypertech.
A press release from the Alpine F1 staff stated: “It is a determination taken at Group stage and by Alpine Administration. The staff stays absolutely centered on the 2024 FIA Method 1 World Championship and dealing onerous to ship one of the best on-track outcomes for the rest of the season.”
Motorsport engineering at Viry will now be centered on Alpine’s World Endurance Championship programme, and Method E and rally-raid programmes for Renault’s associate manufacturers.
