Renault F1 engine staff demand De Meo renounces decision to shut them down

Changes have been massive at Alpine recently, ever since Flavio Briatore was hired as Executive Advisor by Renault CEO Luca De Meo.

Esteban Ocon was out, replaced by Jack Doohan, while Bruno Famin made way for new Team Principal Oliver Oakes.

However the biggest change that may happen at the French F1 outfit is shutting down the team's power unit design and manufacturing facility at Viry-Châtillon.

The decision probably comes after the engineers at Renault's F1 engine facility failed to deliver a decent turbo-hybrid power unit since 2014, and with new regulation looming in 2026, it seems the big wigs at Renault do not have the faith in the personnel to deliver a decent power unit under the upcoming regulation changes.

But it seems the staff at Viry-Châtillon are not happy with the plan concocted by De Meo upon Briatore's advice, and are adamant it would be the wrong decision to drop he F1 engine operations.

A statement sent by the Social and Economic Council of Alpine employees in Viry-Châtillon (Conseil Social et Economique) to Motorsport.com insisted the prototype F1 engine for 2026 is showing promise enough for Renault to reverse their decision.

The statement said: "The Group's management plans to stop the 2026 programme at Viry-Châtillon and opt for an engine supply, probably from Mercedes.

"The reason given is a significant direct saving, trading development costs of $120 million for $17 million in annual supply.

"We do not understand what justifies killing this elite entity that is the Viry-Châtillon site and betraying its legend and its DNA by grafting a Mercedes heart into our F1 Alpine [car].

"The announcement of the end of the development and production of French power units for Formula 1 is incomprehensible.

"We cannot accept that Alpine and the Renault Group damage their images, which is why we ask Mr. De Meo and his board of directors to renounce this decision," the employees demanded.

The Social and Economic Council revealed that aggressive targets have been achieved with the upcoming engine reportedly delivering 400kW when it started running, having a thermal efficiency if 48% while being shorter than the current turbo V6 which should enhance chassis integration. The engine did not suffer major reliability issues, and was lower than the minimum weight dictated in the regulations, meaning the team could make use of ballast, keeping in min Alpine's current woes of being overweight.

It added: "More than a hundred disruptive concepts were studied, nearly a third of which demonstrated significant performance on the test bench and should be introduced on the future Alpine engine: the AR26.

"The target was to start the first Alpine 2026 engine at the end of the first half of 2024, one and a half years after the genesis of the project.

"On 26 June 2024, the RE26A, the name given to the first 'factory' version of the AR26, carried out its first start-up on engine bench no. 6 at Viry-Châtillon, thus marking a success in terms of the targeted deadline.

"On this first engine, almost a third of the performance concepts, previously validated on the system bench, are still absent, planned for introduction before the end of 2024. However, the first test results are promising.

"The RE26A is seen by all the Viry-Châtillon teams as a great success, a well-born engine with a clear potential, a year and a half from the first race, to raise the ambitions of Alpine F1 team," the statement maintained.

While plans were to relocate current Viry-Châtillon F1 engine staff to other motorsport projects within Renault, the Council insisted that would not work.

The statement explained: "The site transformation plan, which should be definitively approved on 30 September 2024, consists of migrating resources to other projects led by Alpine Racing (Endurance, Formula E, customer competition, hydrogen combustion engine of a hypercar, etc.) already saturated with personnel, or to reclassify engineering on innovative projects, supposedly useful to the mass-produced industry, but not defined at this stage.

"Innovation in the automotive sector today focuses on the chemistry and industrialization of batteries, 'software defined vehicles' and autonomous driving. The skills of Viry staff are not related to these subjects," the statement concluded.

As mentioned in the statement, a final decision is expected by September 30th. Who will have his way, the folks at Viry-Châtillon or the Briatore-De Meo duo?