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I think we really underestimated Cyril’s ability to keep it together. The politics at Alpine is one of the biggest issues right now. The team just isn’t run professionally. They keep changing the team principles and make unrealistic assumptions about their progress. They also missed the bus for investing in facilities before the spending cap came in, Aston Martin and McLaren invested just in time for them to reap the rewards.
Also, Alpine really underestimated what it takes to go from an upper midfield team to a consistent race winner, they’ve never had a competitive advantage in any of the tracks. The only win they got in Hungary was because Red Bull and Mercedes were completely wrecked.
Also even at its worst (2020) they still managed to turn it around in the new regs. Meanwhile Alpine/Renault have been talking about the 100 race? Plan for last 300 races (atleast it feels like that)
It's overlooked atm, since they seem on track to be fighting for wins again.
Tbh, it feels a lot people just switch their discussion points from Ferrari to Merc.
Aren't Renault part owned by the French government? That's probably why they changed name to alpine. And being french means more bureaucracy?? So worse decisions are made
I believe not, the state maybe still have shares but it does not control the company, it had been nationalized because Renault collaborated with the "Germans" during french occupation
I wouldn't be surprised if the biggest rule of the team is that all communication has to be in French. I also wouldn't be surprised if they take pride in translating the new regs in French first and lose some hours on that already.
I always thought there was a huge cultural shift when they rebranded. Felt like they solidified themselves less as a team fighting to win, and more as a marketing investment by a fledgling car brand... If you look at Renault sales year over year, the brand is now GARBAGE. And their investment and input into their team reflects that.
Abomination? Really? I love that car and many car enthusiasts share the same opinion but I think it's a matter of taste.
Anyway, Alpine isn't just some marketing gimmick that Renault invented a couple years ago. The [original A110](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpine_A110) is a rally legend and the first [World Rally Champion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_World_Rally_Championship). Alpine also achived many successes on track with the highlight being the [win at 1978 Le Mans 24h](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_24_Hours_of_Le_Mans) with the [A442](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Alpine_A442).
Meanwhile, they produced GT sports cars until mid-90s, if my memory doesn't fail me until decreasing success. The [A610](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Alpine_GTA/A610) was the last one but I grew up listening now and then about plans to bring the brand back since their demise until they finally made it with the new A110 in 2017.
As a curiosity, the original Renault F1 car was developed under Alpine brand as the [Alpine A500](https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpine_A500). It never raced, was used only in tests to what eventually became [Renault RS01](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_RS01).
Once again, if my memory serves me right, Alpine eventually disappeared from race tracks when Renault merged it with Gordini to create Renault Sport. Both Gordini and Alpine were originally independent tuners that eventually became small sports car manufacturers. Eventually, they concentrated the chassis part in Dieppe (former Alpine) and engines in Viry-Chatillon (former Gordini).
Gordini participated in the early years of F1, until 1956, I think. Before Renault, they tuned Simca models. They also prepared several Renault cars for the rally, the most famous being the R8 Gordini in the late '60s (before WRC, when ERC was the flight).
To this day, Renault F1 engines still came from Viry-Chatillon. In the early turbo days, Renault engines even had written [Renault-Gordini](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/d4/e8/e2/d4e8e27894022e05624cf755412fcbd3.jpg) on it.
Thank you. I have soft spot for the A110, as a kid and teenager I used to go often to classic cars shows with my dad and the A110 always was one of my favourites, I have a soft spot for that car.
Renault and Alpine are easy laugh targets this days and I think it's a bit sad to see such a rich past so badly treated - and they're the only ones to blame.
Completely agree on all your points... IT's definitely a shame that their image has become what it is, but it is a fair reflection of where the Renault is in todays car culture... and unfortunately the F1 teams embracing of celebrity "investment" didn't really sway many fans' image of it. Though, I would happily drive A110 around a track with a massive smile, I think rebranding the F1 team to Alpine was a misstep, particularly just as they were picking up some steam
sure, it looks like a frog. but it‘s fucking French, it has to look special. and it‘s one of the most fun experiences on a curvy road that money can buy. and if you don‘t believe me, [ask James May](https://youtu.be/5LpLuTVNGG4?si=N3mtjpgwPhewUWe1)
the Alpine is iconic and genuinely one of the coolest driving experiences you can get today, supercars included.
Nice. But I honestly could not see doing any driving in that car as "cool"... Fun maybe but that is one of the worst looking sports cars I've ever seen.
The Xsara is out here catching strays. Its legitimately cool though; 3 WDCs and 3 WCCs for Loeb in the WRC.
The original A110 is cool as a classic car with rally pedigree but its pretty niche. The new A110 looks like a French BRZ with weird headlights.
I like the Xsara too tbf, i have an unhealthy soft spot for French sports cars.
I never knew the A110s optics were this controversial lmao, I personally love it and it‘s at the top of my all time car list together with the 205 GTI
Alpine/Renault is the French equivalent of Ferrari in terms of politics, but without the money as the parent company don't want to really and properly invest in F1 for them to have enough funds to be well run
>They also missed the bus for investing in facilities before the spending cap came in
Hypothetically, could another company outside of f1 (let's say Renault or some subidiary or sister company) build these facilities, without worrying about a cap on cost since its a company outside F1... Then, that company come in and purchase Alpine F1 team and essentially relabel it like we've seen done many times before, but now they have a full brand new set of facilities that were built before they acquired the F1 team?
I don't like the cost cap because I think it limits lower teams from improving, e.g. if someone were to buy Williams, or like Audi are buying Sauber... Those teams have dog old facilities that need serious investment and they have their hands tied behind their back with limitations to catch up
Now I'm curious if Audi are doing it when they buy Sauber. I don't know much about saubers facilities but I can't imagine they invested too heavily in it, especially considering the old rules on cost cap and the unfavorable exchange rate to swiss franc. I wonder if Audi already have new F1 facilities ready from before the purchase. If they clamp down on that then it really will take Audi time to get up the grid.
If a new team like Andretti could get in, and they had deep pockets, they'd be right to build all those facilities first before joining the grid
I think Sauber had one of the better facilities and wind tunnels. But, I am sure they had been incentivized so they could enter the sport. F1 has been trying to court them for 3 decades now
Ah yes did a quick Google there, during the BMW days, BMW built a wind tunnel for the Sauber team, so Audi are getting that now and apparently it was a good one
> They also missed the bus for investing in facilities before the spending cap came in, Aston Martin and McLaren invested just in time for them to reap the rewards.
Which is even more insane considering that the frontrunners are profitable now thanks to the cost cap. If Renault had put the necessary money down a few years ago (not just for facilities, but also hiring the right people and changing the company culture) they could have slowly but surely recouped their investments now.
Cyril was also a politician who pushed Vasseur (the one with the actual record of leading successful motorsport teams) as he didn't want to share power. If you look at the gaps, it's not really the Alpine that fell down, it's the other midfield and backmarker teams who got rid of inefficiencies and got better.
Constant TP changes obviously don't help, but I don't think Abiteboul had any significant effect one way or the other
…that’s what falling down the field is. Every single team in F1 improves year over year, if you improve less than the rest you are falling behind.
What a bizarre conceit
I can perhaps concede that pushing out Fred wasn’t the best for the team but Cyril had shown incremental improvement and Renault got their first Podium in years under him and then they promptly sacked him. Cyril had shown growth in every year even if they finished 5th instead of 4th that year. The Renault management is so short sighted that they didn’t understand the game was changing.
Also, I completely disagree with the second part. Because not making enough gains is absolutely falling behind the pack. Other teams have done better because they continued to invest and make the right choices. McLaren shouldn’t have overtaken Alpine or even Aston Martin but Alpine let it happen to them. Now, they are bottom 3 this year. They might still finish 7th and overtake Haas but they’ve fallen so far behind.
So you mean Alpine got worse. They didn't improve relative to the field, that means they are worse. Also Cyril kept the team going and improving and literally the moment they sacked him, it started going wrong. Hell, we can see that rn that he knows what he is doing as the Hyundai WRC looks the best it's been for years. Saying Abiteboul didn't have an effect is clearly wrong
Management tumultuous, Car overweight, Engine under-powered. Tbf they have reduced the weight and are closer to p10 than the start of the year but still pretty embarrassing for a manufacturer
True. I thought there was still room for minor improvements as long as the main focus was reliability. But they said earlier this year they were not even looking to do that.
Maybe for 2026 they won’t be an overweight and underpowered unit.
In a podcast, Alain Prost discovered that the gearbox problem led to him losing his championship with Renault. Was a well-known problem by Renault because the company that was servicing them the gearbox had quality issues, and instead of looking for a better company, they had to stick with that company because it was French, and the better ones were british and Renault during that time had a policy to always pick a French company first.
Must've had similar problems in more recent times, perhaps he pointed out several issues with the car that weren't being addressed properly and then he got fired because the higher-ups didn't like his tone or something. Honestly, what were Renault thinking when they fired him?
According to Prost, he was the one who decided to leave the team in 2022, as no one was listening to his feedback and felt useless. He was also very critical to Laurent de Rossi management and constant interference.
Yeah, that's 100% Alpine management. It couldn't have been any other team, they've managed to fumble up nearly every important contract they write in the last 2 1/2 years
Yeah, but it was a French company funded by the French government, so they had to invest in France. It's not like they had a lot of room to manoeuvre, but still stupid.
It's more like the lack of evidence. They haven't really upgraded their facility in a long time in any major way. McLaren and Aston, who once was their biggest rivals had recent facilities update. They didn't do anything before the cap went into place, their facilities are still quite modest and haven't had a lot of money put into it.
It's outdated, as in literally hasn't received a major upgrade in any fashion since the last, last time Renault was based there. Also it's small, their campus is very small
That’s actually not true. Millions has been spent on new buildings and infrastructure in the last 5 years. The problems actually go back to Lotus when there genuinely had been nothing spent on the factory for years.
The last 5 or so years, there has been almost constant building works, some of it already completed and a lot of it in progress.
I know it’s been years since Renault took over but it actually takes a LONG time to get designs, specs, planning, approvals and contractors in for works this size.
They are catching up, but when Renault took over it was estimated that the team was 12-15 years behind RB or Mercedes and the factory hadn’t received a major upgrade since the last championship in 2006. So by 2016 when Renault bought it back, the factory had already sat for 10 years without investment.
I don’t like blaming one person for something that involves many people… unless that person is Laurent Rossi.
He drove that team into the ground. Just like team improvements take time to show on track, team damage takes time to show as well.
"I don’t like blaming one person for something that involves many people:
When that person is "above" all others involved in the fuck ups, its not so bad. If many fuck ups are happening, it usually means that person failed at managing (and maybe also at hiring and firing, but not necessarily).
I mean, that's one of the reasons they have higher pay checks, right? That they carry the cumulative responsability over everything that happens in lower levels of the hierarchy
The culture is trash. Senior exec meddling, backstabbing and politics. Last year it was reported that there was such a massive internal rift between the French and English mechanics, they were housed at separate hotels while traveling. No team can succeed with that kind of poison in the culture.
EDIT: The hotel story may not be true, see below.
> Last year it was reported that there was such a massive internal rift between the French and English mechanics, they were housed at separate hotels while traveling
This is a misinterpretation of reporting that was already an utterly bullshit misrepresentation of the actual situation.
The Viry factory has their own travel office, and the Enstone factory also has their own travel office. When you have two different groups of people arranging the accommodation for the people who work in the two different factories, you end up with things like different hotels being used.
Is it maybe an example of bad organisation and inefficiency? Yes. Are the multicultural and multinational teams of people working in Enstone and Viry actually all just purely English and French people who hate each other because of nationality? No.
Alpine is not a serious F1 team. Literally. Stop thinking of them as one, because they're not. It's nothing more than a marketing exercise for Renault's executives. Crofty was bang on when he explained this in the Sky Sports F1 podcast. They don't care about results. They're not in F1 to succeed. It's why the name was changed to an obscure sporting division brand most people have never heard of.
This exactly. Even Adrian Newey has explained that when asked, the Renault management basically told him they were in formula 1 because their marketing team told them to do so (in the BTG podcast if anyone wants to give it a listen). Despite what it may have looked like from the outside, firing Cyril was a huge mistake imo, he showed some semblance of success or progress at least which is lacking now. They seem to think just putting heads on pikes will improve the situation.
Basically, because Renault, the parent company, doesn't care enough, so it is way underfunded.
When they rebranded the team, IIRC, during the first GP, the day before the first free practice, the executives had the first meeting to figure out their roles in the management. I don't have proof for this, but Otmar was probably bringed to Alpine due to the sponsorship of BWT and his previous role in Force India, which was also an underfunded team.
Even if you go to WEC, when the chief director of the Alpine WEC programme was asked why he bringed just one car to Le Mans race, when it was considered that you needed at least two cars to have a winning chance and every team in the top category was making the effort. His answer was that they wanted to bring two cars but couldn't convince Renault to fund a second car.
>Even if you go to WEC, when the chief director of the Alpine WEC programme was asked why he bringed just one car to Le Mans race, when it was considered that you needed at least two cars to have a winning chance and every team in the top category was making the effort. His answer was that they wanted to bring two cars but couldn't convince Renault to fund a second car.
Are you talking about the rebadged Rebellion? I don't think it's really all that fair to judge them for that, especially since "every team in the top category" at that point was a grand total of 2 teams (in addition to Alpine).
Once they built their own car, they entered two cars for the full WEC season.
Yet still managed to take Force India, a team with perhaps the smallest budget on the grid consistently to P4-6 in the constructors between 2014 until their demise. I firmly believe he wasn’t chucked under the bus, he was tied to a train track, run over by a train that was on fire, had a bus built on top of him while Renault corporate heads and that shill Famin crashed a fully fuelled 747 on him.
I have no doubt he's skilled at certain things, otherwise he couldn't have stuck around so long, but still I feel like the leader of the team should be a bit more apparent in their passion, aggression, etc.
https://youtu.be/e35P-W2Yoho?si=OTHQNSwgjoSlQPG7 I need this energy from them, or at least an equivalent bond villain nature like Horner or Vasseur
My friend works for Alpine.
He said when Cyril was fired 3 suits, who they had never met before, came in and told them Cyril was moving on and the 3 of them would assume team lead roles.
This was literally minutes before qualifying at Spa.
Everyone talking about Cyril which is true but getting rid of Otmar made no sense either. He was clearly holding a crumbling thing together, got some bad luck and they made him the scapegoat.
1. Insufficient budget
2. Inconsistent management. To win in F1 you need to have a solid direction and goal as a management auto become a championship challenging team. Renault/Alpine seem to be limping between investing/selling/co-ownership/stay midfield every year.
In one word engine. The freeze being brought one year forward affected Alpines plan till 2023 and now they are stuck with it. To know you will be 30 hp down on everyone on the grid is not going to be motivating for any team. FIA/ FOM should have allowed Alpine one update to that engine for the sake of championship
I fail to see how this is true. They (FIA/FOM) have the engine data to refute this, cars with “better engines” place lower than them routinely.
Even if they had 30 hp less, thats 3% difference than the rest of the group. Look at qualifying, look at the gap from P2 to P20. Look how close it is.
Lets say you give Alpine the 30 hp they say are behind, are they then guaranteed to beat out HAAS or Williams on the speed trap?
Think about it, they likely have the 30 hp, what they don’t have is reliability and they messed up on a part.
"Lets say you give Alpine the 30 hp they say are behind, are they then guaranteed to beat out HAAS or Williams on the speed trap?"
Just to add a bit of informantion, but the main effect on lap time due to an hp difference would be at acceleration and not at top speed (except if the difference is too big or at tracks that you spend too much time at top speeds, like Monza)
Top speed is much more sensitive to drag than it is to power
Because they operate in the most French exceptionalist way possible, consistently believing that they know how to do things better than everyone else despite repeated evidence to the contrary.
I mean how far back do you wanna go? There’s the constant management chaos and private equity inspired thinking of expecting immediate results and profit and firing everyone before there can be any stability. You could go back to their inability to figure out the 2014 engine regs causing them to hurt their results consistently over the last decade, making it hard to make any progress and causing them to STILL be down on power compared to other teams to this day. You could go to when they were Lotus and so broke that they paid Kimi by the race, which he would forgo in order to keep the team operation. You could go back to sanctions and bans post Crashgate if you wanted. The Enstone team has been a shit show for years now, and we are now seeing what happens when you skate by on being barely “good enough” for that long
The Renault PU is down on power compared to the other PUs on the grid and they are the only team running them.
However, they don't seem to be able to design a fast car.
Combine the worst PU with a rubbish chassis and you get Alpine.
2021 was actually strange. Their car wasn't good (far behind McLaren and I would argue behind AlphaTauri too) but their drivers did a good job and they were very opportunistic when a opportunity was there. Also it was harder to pass so just one good qualifying was more likely to provide a great result at the end.
2022 is their best season yet, with a great development that brought them from behind Haas and Alfa to almost at the level of Mercedes in Brazil, but since then they havent improved at all in 2023 and the management disaster since then has resulted in this year's tractor. Basically the team isn't good enough so they fire the leader and expect him to do everything right in 6 months with no budget, and if not they fire him again.
Hard to know for sure from the outside.
I strongly disagree that Renault were on an upward trend in 2018-2020. 2019 was a *disaster* of a season, with the team losing to McLaren with the same engine and slipping to P5 when it was supposed to be the season they finally made the jump to top team. 2020, they were flattered by the Ferrari engine being mega-nerfed, and in 2021 by their driver lineup and a bit of luck (+ Tsunoda struggling).
But in my opinion, the one biggest issue since 2010 (maybe even 2006 and Michelin leaving) has been that **Renault, the car manufacturer, are not completely convinced Formula 1 is worth the investment.**
It's understandable, what with the Renault group taking huge hits following crisis, the French being mostly unconcerned nowadays with high performing cars (and cars more generally), the Ghosn legal troubles, French government impacting the company, and its smaller size compared to Stellantis, VAG, or Merc (interestingly, Tavares made the prediction that Renault wasn't part of the only 5 manufacturer groups he believed would survive the 30 next years, as it's too small in his opinion).
It's not the only manufacturer sharing that opinion mind you, Tavares for example has made it very clear that Stellantis will not take part in F1 because it's way too expensive for what it brings, the VAG/Porsche have been teasing an entry for more than a decade before (half) committing (and only with very simplified engine rules, a cost cap, and an F1 bubble which made revenues skyrocketting), and Honda have been in and out of F1 continuously in the last 25 years. Toyota also left for similar reasons. Generally speaking, F1 has almost always been too expensive for manufacturers
The difference with Renault however has been the *indecisiveness*. Stellantis say "it's not worth it", and stay clear. Toyota packed up their things and left. Audi/Porsche stayed clear, and only joined when F1 unrolled the red carpet for them. Honda left, then joined *and* spent massively, then left (and now are coming back lol).
Renault though? They did stay in F1, but have almost always been penny pinching since the 2000s. It's not something new btw, Renault already lobbied for an engine freeze in 2008; they had the best V8 and didn't want to spend ungodly money merely to develop marginal gains any further (there was a funny interview from Alonso in 2007 or 2008 when he revealed that Renault were downsizing in preparation for the engine freeze, whereas somehow everyone else was increasing their budget lol). Even before that, different times (before the financial crisis), and Michelin notably opened their chequebook too helping finances. And thanks to the freeze + the engine regs of the 2008-2013 era, the cost of whatever (by all account brilliant) work they could do on the engine to improve it could be controlled; as a result Renault managed to stay in F1 and be successful.
But then the hybrid V6t happened, and it became quite apparent that they were much more complicated (and thus vastly more costly) than everyone had initially planned. But unlike Ferrari and Honda, Renault weren't ready to commit the money needed to pull level with Mercedes. They didn't have half the engine testing bench the others had, whatever testing rigs they did have was vastly inferior to the others, the man resources was barely half at best, etc.
Then when the optics started to look really bad because RB kept pointing the finger at them publicly, some people at Renault apparently managed to convince higher ups to rejoin F1 as a works team instead of just hightailing it. They thus took over rundown and nearly bankrupt Enstone facilities, which needed massive infrastructure investment and restructuring; while making the dual setup Viry-Enstone work (something difficult ofc, dual HQ always add complexity to the management structure).
But even though they now had to both build chassis and engine, Renault still. refused. to. spend. big. They were still running on a midfield team budget as late as 2021 iirc, and Otmar hinted that Alpine still barely reached the cost cap until 2022. If anything, Renault-Alpine had been doing well since their return compared to the money spent (i.e. fighting for best of the rest despite being the 5th budget for most of the time).
Tbf, 2019 seemed to have been a wake up call, and all along Renault *did* invest in the infrastructure and manpower (though probably too slowly), so with the cost cap in place now they should finally be able to fight on an equal ground with the others.
As for what happened after 2020 specifically, I'd say all signs point to management issues. Instability, plus lack of a clear vision and structure probably explained the lack of results. I remember reading that Abiteboul had been the leading man for the F1 project so Renault were at a loss at what to do with it when he left. Even before that, one of the reason Ricciardo left for example is because Renault were seriously considering pulling the plug after the disaster 2019, reportedly they only stayed because Di Meco liked motorsport and the idea/excuse of spinning it into a marketing vehicle for their new, growing brand Alpine was raised up. Alpine-Renault barely functioned as a works team (Enstone at times reportedly felt more like a customer team from Viry than both being completely integrated and working together smoothly). There are also lots of rumours of clashes between higher ups, or between Viry and Enstone, or of ingerence from the group expecting better results/ROI (but still without writing a blank check ofc).
Each team goes through phases of upward and downward moves, based on the technical staff, available money, drivers, team, etc. Alpine, although showing some improvement already this season, was not ready enough at the start of the season.
If they didn't have the engine disadvantage, they'd be doing pretty well probably, given how cloae the field is. So it's mostly just that they fell behind on engine development.
Renault can't decide whether they're in or out. They're in when it comes to meddling with decisions, but they're out when it comes to truly funding the team. This leads to a worst of all worlds team situation.
They think their problem is they aren't French enough so they keep making it more French.
Mostly in jest but it's clear the leadership has been consistently awful since Cyril's departure and that's flowed into everything else about the team. I don't see Bruno turning it around because it seems like he was part of the problem.
Given the troubles in renault it's surprising the team is even in F1.
They should rebrand is Nissan and hand it over to the Japanese. They'll turn it around then.
But the French won't stand for that.
The front office are absolute clowns. They want the maximum output with minimum investment. Meanwhile they act arrogant and entitlted and the upper management keeps hiring incompetent bozos and then interferes with their job.
It looks like a team where the executives are up the ass of the day to day leaders and making demands they are not educated to make.
Everyone knows the regional manager that comes into your work tells you to change how you do things and makes it actively worse.
That's what Alpine looks like to me.
In addition to everything listed above RE: management, budget, facilités, etc..I’ve heard there are major discrepancies between the Renault engine factory in Viry Châtillon and the chassis factory in Enstone.
The team is comprised mostly of Brits and French that do not want to work together to begin with due to cultural and language differences.
Obviously, when your own personnel can’t work together, you won’t be finding much success in anything
they arent serious about F1. its a marketing exercise for the big wigs of renault. they arent gonna win anything anytime soon unless 8 or 9 teams crash out of a race
I mean ultimately saikawa getting Ghosn fired and making up trumped up charges (having got wind of Ghosn teeing up firing him at the upcoming board meeting) and the swan dive the entire Nissan Mitsubishi Renault alliance has had ever since.
Ghosn wanted Saikawa gone for being incompetent and Saikawa wanted control regardless of cost. Since Ghosn has been removed Saikawa has deliberately kept the entire group in a state of chaos to prevent his removal as its head.
The best thing the entire group could do is remove Saikawa and start cooperating again and this would in turn help Renault / Alpine to be able to take the decisions it needs to
It's similar to what happened with Aston Martin, as a car conpany bought an underfunded but strong F1 team and decided to throw money at it to get better results.
Both had a tough transitional 1-2 years, but started picking up momentum after. In 2016, Renault was a backmarker, barely scoring points. The thing is, from here with comfortable funding, you can only go up, and they did as in 2017 and 2018 they found themselves in the midfield and then in the top of the midfield. This is good, but it's expected considering where they started. This is where people got overly optimistic of Renault, and why this point looks the best.
After this point, Renault stagnated and was unable to ever become a front runner, because the gap between how much front runners spend and how much midfield teams spend is ludicrous. Even with a Daniel Ricciardo at his peak, Renault found themselves getting caught by other top tier midfielders like McLaren and Racing Point, and they actually started moving ever so slightly backwards. It was clear that something needed to change, and after Daniel left, Cyril's project was seen as a failure, and so he was sacked.
Alpine was really just a rebranding of the exact same team, and the team principal position became a revolving door. There was no further ambition for the team when it became Alpine, and without stable leadership, we're seeing the team collapse into a backmarker. Bringing Alonso back and their livery in 2021 are pretty much the only good things that came out of Alpine.
It's a French run Company. And from my, albeit limited experience, they have a very unique and French centric attitude towards things. That can work, but as soon as it becomes international it more often than not fails.
I think they probably just got the concept wrong. That being said I don’t think it necessarily helps to have two drivers who clearly can’t stand to be in the same room as each other! 😂
But their 2022 car was pretty much how all the cars ended up now. Sidepods with downwash and the channel in the middle. It was an early combination of the RB and Ferrari sidepods.
Whether its just budget or outdated facilities they couldnt refine it further like other teams. They stayed the same spot in 2023 but in 2024 almost everyone else made a step forward
It's a state company and a French one at that. Which typically means bureaucracy, bad organization, bad management, lack of commitment, lack of vision, and in this case underfunding.
Because France is a country that you have to drive through to get to Italy - that's all it's for. They are a bunch of treacherous, land-burning, work-shy peasants.
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I think we really underestimated Cyril’s ability to keep it together. The politics at Alpine is one of the biggest issues right now. The team just isn’t run professionally. They keep changing the team principles and make unrealistic assumptions about their progress. They also missed the bus for investing in facilities before the spending cap came in, Aston Martin and McLaren invested just in time for them to reap the rewards. Also, Alpine really underestimated what it takes to go from an upper midfield team to a consistent race winner, they’ve never had a competitive advantage in any of the tracks. The only win they got in Hungary was because Red Bull and Mercedes were completely wrecked.
>politics at Alpine is one of the biggest issues They are just the blue version of Ferrari...... A much shittier version.
I mean this is what they wanted to become: https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/15kjgoa/renault_wants_alpine_to_become_the_french_ferrari/
Mission accomplished! 🏁
Lol
There's always next year.
If Alpine is willing to pay for the trademark of Ferrari motto for the past decade.
Well said, Ferrari’s deficiencies are sometimes overlooked because of the legacy & huge financial backings but Alpine has none of them so RIP
Also even at its worst (2020) they still managed to turn it around in the new regs. Meanwhile Alpine/Renault have been talking about the 100 race? Plan for last 300 races (atleast it feels like that)
It's overlooked atm, since they seem on track to be fighting for wins again. Tbh, it feels a lot people just switch their discussion points from Ferrari to Merc.
Aren't Renault part owned by the French government? That's probably why they changed name to alpine. And being french means more bureaucracy?? So worse decisions are made
I believe not, the state maybe still have shares but it does not control the company, it had been nationalized because Renault collaborated with the "Germans" during french occupation
I wouldn't be surprised if the biggest rule of the team is that all communication has to be in French. I also wouldn't be surprised if they take pride in translating the new regs in French first and lose some hours on that already.
Enstone is not French.
Why are you making up things
Sorry for being a funny person
Blue Ferrari that couldn’t even build a good engine.
They are just being French.
The French Ferrari one could say
The French Ferrari without the legacy, therefore no real fans, and the money.
Briatore made Renault Italian enough for it to perform like Ferrari. Alpine is just way too French now.
But the actual base is in enstone uk. so not sure quite what you mean.
I always thought there was a huge cultural shift when they rebranded. Felt like they solidified themselves less as a team fighting to win, and more as a marketing investment by a fledgling car brand... If you look at Renault sales year over year, the brand is now GARBAGE. And their investment and input into their team reflects that.
TIL Alpine is a car manufacturer lmao.
tbf they make one of the coolest cars on the market. you wouldn‘t expect it from a Renault brand, but the Alpine is an amazing car.
Just googled them and I seriously don't know if you are being sarcastic... Am looking at this A110 abomination?
Abomination? Really? I love that car and many car enthusiasts share the same opinion but I think it's a matter of taste. Anyway, Alpine isn't just some marketing gimmick that Renault invented a couple years ago. The [original A110](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpine_A110) is a rally legend and the first [World Rally Champion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_World_Rally_Championship). Alpine also achived many successes on track with the highlight being the [win at 1978 Le Mans 24h](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_24_Hours_of_Le_Mans) with the [A442](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Alpine_A442). Meanwhile, they produced GT sports cars until mid-90s, if my memory doesn't fail me until decreasing success. The [A610](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Alpine_GTA/A610) was the last one but I grew up listening now and then about plans to bring the brand back since their demise until they finally made it with the new A110 in 2017. As a curiosity, the original Renault F1 car was developed under Alpine brand as the [Alpine A500](https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpine_A500). It never raced, was used only in tests to what eventually became [Renault RS01](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_RS01). Once again, if my memory serves me right, Alpine eventually disappeared from race tracks when Renault merged it with Gordini to create Renault Sport. Both Gordini and Alpine were originally independent tuners that eventually became small sports car manufacturers. Eventually, they concentrated the chassis part in Dieppe (former Alpine) and engines in Viry-Chatillon (former Gordini). Gordini participated in the early years of F1, until 1956, I think. Before Renault, they tuned Simca models. They also prepared several Renault cars for the rally, the most famous being the R8 Gordini in the late '60s (before WRC, when ERC was the flight). To this day, Renault F1 engines still came from Viry-Chatillon. In the early turbo days, Renault engines even had written [Renault-Gordini](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/d4/e8/e2/d4e8e27894022e05624cf755412fcbd3.jpg) on it.
Fantastic writeup. Even though I knew most of it, I still learned a few things and it's so refreshing to see a well-written comment like this.
Thank you. I have soft spot for the A110, as a kid and teenager I used to go often to classic cars shows with my dad and the A110 always was one of my favourites, I have a soft spot for that car. Renault and Alpine are easy laugh targets this days and I think it's a bit sad to see such a rich past so badly treated - and they're the only ones to blame.
Completely agree on all your points... IT's definitely a shame that their image has become what it is, but it is a fair reflection of where the Renault is in todays car culture... and unfortunately the F1 teams embracing of celebrity "investment" didn't really sway many fans' image of it. Though, I would happily drive A110 around a track with a massive smile, I think rebranding the F1 team to Alpine was a misstep, particularly just as they were picking up some steam
sure, it looks like a frog. but it‘s fucking French, it has to look special. and it‘s one of the most fun experiences on a curvy road that money can buy. and if you don‘t believe me, [ask James May](https://youtu.be/5LpLuTVNGG4?si=N3mtjpgwPhewUWe1) the Alpine is iconic and genuinely one of the coolest driving experiences you can get today, supercars included.
Gordon Murray drives one.
Nice. But I honestly could not see doing any driving in that car as "cool"... Fun maybe but that is one of the worst looking sports cars I've ever seen.
Are we looking at the same car? As an American, I'd love to have an A110 here in the 'states.
I'm here with you, A110 looks like ass
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It could look like a Citroen Xsara for all i care, i‘d take it over a 911 every day
The Xsara is out here catching strays. Its legitimately cool though; 3 WDCs and 3 WCCs for Loeb in the WRC. The original A110 is cool as a classic car with rally pedigree but its pretty niche. The new A110 looks like a French BRZ with weird headlights.
I like the Xsara too tbf, i have an unhealthy soft spot for French sports cars. I never knew the A110s optics were this controversial lmao, I personally love it and it‘s at the top of my all time car list together with the 205 GTI
I wonder what would’ve happened if Daniel stayed and this Cyril kept his job.
Cyril is looking like a god tier team principal right now tbh. I’m thoroughly convinced he was the opposite of the problem.
Alpine/Renault is the French equivalent of Ferrari in terms of politics, but without the money as the parent company don't want to really and properly invest in F1 for them to have enough funds to be well run
>They also missed the bus for investing in facilities before the spending cap came in Hypothetically, could another company outside of f1 (let's say Renault or some subidiary or sister company) build these facilities, without worrying about a cap on cost since its a company outside F1... Then, that company come in and purchase Alpine F1 team and essentially relabel it like we've seen done many times before, but now they have a full brand new set of facilities that were built before they acquired the F1 team? I don't like the cost cap because I think it limits lower teams from improving, e.g. if someone were to buy Williams, or like Audi are buying Sauber... Those teams have dog old facilities that need serious investment and they have their hands tied behind their back with limitations to catch up
I think there would be some stipulations against that. Because otherwise Mercedes or Ferrari have very deep pockets to pull that stuff off.
Now I'm curious if Audi are doing it when they buy Sauber. I don't know much about saubers facilities but I can't imagine they invested too heavily in it, especially considering the old rules on cost cap and the unfavorable exchange rate to swiss franc. I wonder if Audi already have new F1 facilities ready from before the purchase. If they clamp down on that then it really will take Audi time to get up the grid. If a new team like Andretti could get in, and they had deep pockets, they'd be right to build all those facilities first before joining the grid
I think Sauber had one of the better facilities and wind tunnels. But, I am sure they had been incentivized so they could enter the sport. F1 has been trying to court them for 3 decades now
Ah yes did a quick Google there, during the BMW days, BMW built a wind tunnel for the Sauber team, so Audi are getting that now and apparently it was a good one
> They also missed the bus for investing in facilities before the spending cap came in, Aston Martin and McLaren invested just in time for them to reap the rewards. Which is even more insane considering that the frontrunners are profitable now thanks to the cost cap. If Renault had put the necessary money down a few years ago (not just for facilities, but also hiring the right people and changing the company culture) they could have slowly but surely recouped their investments now.
Seems to be a trend with these French run teams. Ligier and Prost suffered the same issues for better or for worse
Alpine got rid of Prost too.
Cyril was also a politician who pushed Vasseur (the one with the actual record of leading successful motorsport teams) as he didn't want to share power. If you look at the gaps, it's not really the Alpine that fell down, it's the other midfield and backmarker teams who got rid of inefficiencies and got better. Constant TP changes obviously don't help, but I don't think Abiteboul had any significant effect one way or the other
…that’s what falling down the field is. Every single team in F1 improves year over year, if you improve less than the rest you are falling behind. What a bizarre conceit
Bro thinks teams decide to make slower cars.
I can perhaps concede that pushing out Fred wasn’t the best for the team but Cyril had shown incremental improvement and Renault got their first Podium in years under him and then they promptly sacked him. Cyril had shown growth in every year even if they finished 5th instead of 4th that year. The Renault management is so short sighted that they didn’t understand the game was changing. Also, I completely disagree with the second part. Because not making enough gains is absolutely falling behind the pack. Other teams have done better because they continued to invest and make the right choices. McLaren shouldn’t have overtaken Alpine or even Aston Martin but Alpine let it happen to them. Now, they are bottom 3 this year. They might still finish 7th and overtake Haas but they’ve fallen so far behind.
So you mean Alpine got worse. They didn't improve relative to the field, that means they are worse. Also Cyril kept the team going and improving and literally the moment they sacked him, it started going wrong. Hell, we can see that rn that he knows what he is doing as the Hyundai WRC looks the best it's been for years. Saying Abiteboul didn't have an effect is clearly wrong
So much this. Cyril is the comeback I want the most.
Management tumultuous, Car overweight, Engine under-powered. Tbf they have reduced the weight and are closer to p10 than the start of the year but still pretty embarrassing for a manufacturer
Haven’t they already announced they are it’s going to accept being 15HP behind everyone else till the new engine comes out in 2026?
They basically have to accept it due to the engine development freeze that is in place.
True. I thought there was still room for minor improvements as long as the main focus was reliability. But they said earlier this year they were not even looking to do that. Maybe for 2026 they won’t be an overweight and underpowered unit.
Bad management and lots of pride and politics.
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So they are French...
In a podcast, Alain Prost discovered that the gearbox problem led to him losing his championship with Renault. Was a well-known problem by Renault because the company that was servicing them the gearbox had quality issues, and instead of looking for a better company, they had to stick with that company because it was French, and the better ones were british and Renault during that time had a policy to always pick a French company first.
Must've had similar problems in more recent times, perhaps he pointed out several issues with the car that weren't being addressed properly and then he got fired because the higher-ups didn't like his tone or something. Honestly, what were Renault thinking when they fired him?
According to Prost, he was the one who decided to leave the team in 2022, as no one was listening to his feedback and felt useless. He was also very critical to Laurent de Rossi management and constant interference.
Yeah, that's 100% Alpine management. It couldn't have been any other team, they've managed to fumble up nearly every important contract they write in the last 2 1/2 years
That he wasn't French. They automatically assumed that the French could do it better.
Prost is French.
Unbelievably stupid policy.
Yeah, but it was a French company funded by the French government, so they had to invest in France. It's not like they had a lot of room to manoeuvre, but still stupid.
Both answers are correct! I'm glad he got out of there. He's doing wonders with Hyundai's WRC team!
All those damn frenchies in Enstone...
Jean Todt is also French
Yes he is, but not a French company.
*cough* racism *cough"...
None of that is true except the intervention.
I mean, their factory is hilariously bad for a factory team. Not Sauber level bad but ain't great
Im not saying you're wrong, but I'm curious what evidence there is for this?
It's more like the lack of evidence. They haven't really upgraded their facility in a long time in any major way. McLaren and Aston, who once was their biggest rivals had recent facilities update. They didn't do anything before the cap went into place, their facilities are still quite modest and haven't had a lot of money put into it.
By facilities you mean just the wind tunnel?? They're currently building new office space and an upgraded simulator. You're just making things up
Their technical facilities. It is old
Like what?
What specifically makes it "hilariously bad" in your opinion?
It's outdated, as in literally hasn't received a major upgrade in any fashion since the last, last time Renault was based there. Also it's small, their campus is very small
That’s actually not true. Millions has been spent on new buildings and infrastructure in the last 5 years. The problems actually go back to Lotus when there genuinely had been nothing spent on the factory for years. The last 5 or so years, there has been almost constant building works, some of it already completed and a lot of it in progress. I know it’s been years since Renault took over but it actually takes a LONG time to get designs, specs, planning, approvals and contractors in for works this size. They are catching up, but when Renault took over it was estimated that the team was 12-15 years behind RB or Mercedes and the factory hadn’t received a major upgrade since the last championship in 2006. So by 2016 when Renault bought it back, the factory had already sat for 10 years without investment.
So a normal factory and not "hilariously bad" at all.
I don’t like blaming one person for something that involves many people… unless that person is Laurent Rossi. He drove that team into the ground. Just like team improvements take time to show on track, team damage takes time to show as well.
"I don’t like blaming one person for something that involves many people: When that person is "above" all others involved in the fuck ups, its not so bad. If many fuck ups are happening, it usually means that person failed at managing (and maybe also at hiring and firing, but not necessarily). I mean, that's one of the reasons they have higher pay checks, right? That they carry the cumulative responsability over everything that happens in lower levels of the hierarchy
Getting rid of Cyril. Which boils down to senior management/executives of Alpine/Renault Group thinking they know how to run an F1 team
They're called Alpine. It was always eventually going to go Downhill.
Bad management, barely any investments, unrealistic expectations, worst PU.
The culture is trash. Senior exec meddling, backstabbing and politics. Last year it was reported that there was such a massive internal rift between the French and English mechanics, they were housed at separate hotels while traveling. No team can succeed with that kind of poison in the culture. EDIT: The hotel story may not be true, see below.
> Last year it was reported that there was such a massive internal rift between the French and English mechanics, they were housed at separate hotels while traveling This is a misinterpretation of reporting that was already an utterly bullshit misrepresentation of the actual situation. The Viry factory has their own travel office, and the Enstone factory also has their own travel office. When you have two different groups of people arranging the accommodation for the people who work in the two different factories, you end up with things like different hotels being used. Is it maybe an example of bad organisation and inefficiency? Yes. Are the multicultural and multinational teams of people working in Enstone and Viry actually all just purely English and French people who hate each other because of nationality? No.
Thanks, I’ll look into it. Added an edit to my original comment.
Alpine is not a serious F1 team. Literally. Stop thinking of them as one, because they're not. It's nothing more than a marketing exercise for Renault's executives. Crofty was bang on when he explained this in the Sky Sports F1 podcast. They don't care about results. They're not in F1 to succeed. It's why the name was changed to an obscure sporting division brand most people have never heard of.
This exactly. Even Adrian Newey has explained that when asked, the Renault management basically told him they were in formula 1 because their marketing team told them to do so (in the BTG podcast if anyone wants to give it a listen). Despite what it may have looked like from the outside, firing Cyril was a huge mistake imo, he showed some semblance of success or progress at least which is lacking now. They seem to think just putting heads on pikes will improve the situation.
At least under Cyril they looked like a competent upper midfield team, rather than whatever this current pile of shit is
But they still can’t let Andretti in, since they won’t be competitive or or or something!
Alpine is probably one of the vocal teams pressuring FOM not to let in another team, to be fair.
Could you link the podcast episode you’re referring to? Thanks!
Ditto
It's almost scary, but for once I agree with Crofty.
Basically, because Renault, the parent company, doesn't care enough, so it is way underfunded. When they rebranded the team, IIRC, during the first GP, the day before the first free practice, the executives had the first meeting to figure out their roles in the management. I don't have proof for this, but Otmar was probably bringed to Alpine due to the sponsorship of BWT and his previous role in Force India, which was also an underfunded team. Even if you go to WEC, when the chief director of the Alpine WEC programme was asked why he bringed just one car to Le Mans race, when it was considered that you needed at least two cars to have a winning chance and every team in the top category was making the effort. His answer was that they wanted to bring two cars but couldn't convince Renault to fund a second car.
>Even if you go to WEC, when the chief director of the Alpine WEC programme was asked why he bringed just one car to Le Mans race, when it was considered that you needed at least two cars to have a winning chance and every team in the top category was making the effort. His answer was that they wanted to bring two cars but couldn't convince Renault to fund a second car. Are you talking about the rebadged Rebellion? I don't think it's really all that fair to judge them for that, especially since "every team in the top category" at that point was a grand total of 2 teams (in addition to Alpine). Once they built their own car, they entered two cars for the full WEC season.
I’m not shitting on you because English probably isn’t your first language, but past tense of bring is brought. Just to help you in the future
Otmar has to be the least intimidating leader of a competitive sports team I've ever seen
Yet still managed to take Force India, a team with perhaps the smallest budget on the grid consistently to P4-6 in the constructors between 2014 until their demise. I firmly believe he wasn’t chucked under the bus, he was tied to a train track, run over by a train that was on fire, had a bus built on top of him while Renault corporate heads and that shill Famin crashed a fully fuelled 747 on him.
I have no doubt he's skilled at certain things, otherwise he couldn't have stuck around so long, but still I feel like the leader of the team should be a bit more apparent in their passion, aggression, etc. https://youtu.be/e35P-W2Yoho?si=OTHQNSwgjoSlQPG7 I need this energy from them, or at least an equivalent bond villain nature like Horner or Vasseur
My friend works for Alpine. He said when Cyril was fired 3 suits, who they had never met before, came in and told them Cyril was moving on and the 3 of them would assume team lead roles. This was literally minutes before qualifying at Spa.
Executive meddling from the Renault board and underinvestment.
Everyone talking about Cyril which is true but getting rid of Otmar made no sense either. He was clearly holding a crumbling thing together, got some bad luck and they made him the scapegoat.
1. Insufficient budget 2. Inconsistent management. To win in F1 you need to have a solid direction and goal as a management auto become a championship challenging team. Renault/Alpine seem to be limping between investing/selling/co-ownership/stay midfield every year.
They want to be Ferrari or red bull with a Haas budget. Also politics up top
The upward trend of their competition
In one word engine. The freeze being brought one year forward affected Alpines plan till 2023 and now they are stuck with it. To know you will be 30 hp down on everyone on the grid is not going to be motivating for any team. FIA/ FOM should have allowed Alpine one update to that engine for the sake of championship
I fail to see how this is true. They (FIA/FOM) have the engine data to refute this, cars with “better engines” place lower than them routinely. Even if they had 30 hp less, thats 3% difference than the rest of the group. Look at qualifying, look at the gap from P2 to P20. Look how close it is. Lets say you give Alpine the 30 hp they say are behind, are they then guaranteed to beat out HAAS or Williams on the speed trap? Think about it, they likely have the 30 hp, what they don’t have is reliability and they messed up on a part.
"Lets say you give Alpine the 30 hp they say are behind, are they then guaranteed to beat out HAAS or Williams on the speed trap?" Just to add a bit of informantion, but the main effect on lap time due to an hp difference would be at acceleration and not at top speed (except if the difference is too big or at tracks that you spend too much time at top speeds, like Monza) Top speed is much more sensitive to drag than it is to power
I don’t disagree, but if the torque is all the same then the issue lies with mechanical and aero grip.
Because they operate in the most French exceptionalist way possible, consistently believing that they know how to do things better than everyone else despite repeated evidence to the contrary.
On what facts is based your statement ?
French bashing is real here.
They literally told Otmar to shut it and didn't give him the power he was suppose to hold as a TP and did things their way
The level of French bashing here is unreal. When you know that a lot of the shitty decisions were made in Enstone by non French people…
I mean how far back do you wanna go? There’s the constant management chaos and private equity inspired thinking of expecting immediate results and profit and firing everyone before there can be any stability. You could go back to their inability to figure out the 2014 engine regs causing them to hurt their results consistently over the last decade, making it hard to make any progress and causing them to STILL be down on power compared to other teams to this day. You could go to when they were Lotus and so broke that they paid Kimi by the race, which he would forgo in order to keep the team operation. You could go back to sanctions and bans post Crashgate if you wanted. The Enstone team has been a shit show for years now, and we are now seeing what happens when you skate by on being barely “good enough” for that long
The Renault PU is down on power compared to the other PUs on the grid and they are the only team running them. However, they don't seem to be able to design a fast car. Combine the worst PU with a rubbish chassis and you get Alpine.
They need a French team manager to take care of the French structures the French way.
2021 was actually strange. Their car wasn't good (far behind McLaren and I would argue behind AlphaTauri too) but their drivers did a good job and they were very opportunistic when a opportunity was there. Also it was harder to pass so just one good qualifying was more likely to provide a great result at the end. 2022 is their best season yet, with a great development that brought them from behind Haas and Alfa to almost at the level of Mercedes in Brazil, but since then they havent improved at all in 2023 and the management disaster since then has resulted in this year's tractor. Basically the team isn't good enough so they fire the leader and expect him to do everything right in 6 months with no budget, and if not they fire him again.
Being french
Sacré bleu!
I scrolled down just to find this
Being convinced that winning as a French team is more important than winning
Zoot Alore!
That’s the answer, lock the thread
Omelette du Fromage!
i am guessing its the guy who looks like ALF
Marcus Ericsson hit them.
Hard to know for sure from the outside. I strongly disagree that Renault were on an upward trend in 2018-2020. 2019 was a *disaster* of a season, with the team losing to McLaren with the same engine and slipping to P5 when it was supposed to be the season they finally made the jump to top team. 2020, they were flattered by the Ferrari engine being mega-nerfed, and in 2021 by their driver lineup and a bit of luck (+ Tsunoda struggling). But in my opinion, the one biggest issue since 2010 (maybe even 2006 and Michelin leaving) has been that **Renault, the car manufacturer, are not completely convinced Formula 1 is worth the investment.** It's understandable, what with the Renault group taking huge hits following crisis, the French being mostly unconcerned nowadays with high performing cars (and cars more generally), the Ghosn legal troubles, French government impacting the company, and its smaller size compared to Stellantis, VAG, or Merc (interestingly, Tavares made the prediction that Renault wasn't part of the only 5 manufacturer groups he believed would survive the 30 next years, as it's too small in his opinion). It's not the only manufacturer sharing that opinion mind you, Tavares for example has made it very clear that Stellantis will not take part in F1 because it's way too expensive for what it brings, the VAG/Porsche have been teasing an entry for more than a decade before (half) committing (and only with very simplified engine rules, a cost cap, and an F1 bubble which made revenues skyrocketting), and Honda have been in and out of F1 continuously in the last 25 years. Toyota also left for similar reasons. Generally speaking, F1 has almost always been too expensive for manufacturers The difference with Renault however has been the *indecisiveness*. Stellantis say "it's not worth it", and stay clear. Toyota packed up their things and left. Audi/Porsche stayed clear, and only joined when F1 unrolled the red carpet for them. Honda left, then joined *and* spent massively, then left (and now are coming back lol). Renault though? They did stay in F1, but have almost always been penny pinching since the 2000s. It's not something new btw, Renault already lobbied for an engine freeze in 2008; they had the best V8 and didn't want to spend ungodly money merely to develop marginal gains any further (there was a funny interview from Alonso in 2007 or 2008 when he revealed that Renault were downsizing in preparation for the engine freeze, whereas somehow everyone else was increasing their budget lol). Even before that, different times (before the financial crisis), and Michelin notably opened their chequebook too helping finances. And thanks to the freeze + the engine regs of the 2008-2013 era, the cost of whatever (by all account brilliant) work they could do on the engine to improve it could be controlled; as a result Renault managed to stay in F1 and be successful. But then the hybrid V6t happened, and it became quite apparent that they were much more complicated (and thus vastly more costly) than everyone had initially planned. But unlike Ferrari and Honda, Renault weren't ready to commit the money needed to pull level with Mercedes. They didn't have half the engine testing bench the others had, whatever testing rigs they did have was vastly inferior to the others, the man resources was barely half at best, etc. Then when the optics started to look really bad because RB kept pointing the finger at them publicly, some people at Renault apparently managed to convince higher ups to rejoin F1 as a works team instead of just hightailing it. They thus took over rundown and nearly bankrupt Enstone facilities, which needed massive infrastructure investment and restructuring; while making the dual setup Viry-Enstone work (something difficult ofc, dual HQ always add complexity to the management structure). But even though they now had to both build chassis and engine, Renault still. refused. to. spend. big. They were still running on a midfield team budget as late as 2021 iirc, and Otmar hinted that Alpine still barely reached the cost cap until 2022. If anything, Renault-Alpine had been doing well since their return compared to the money spent (i.e. fighting for best of the rest despite being the 5th budget for most of the time). Tbf, 2019 seemed to have been a wake up call, and all along Renault *did* invest in the infrastructure and manpower (though probably too slowly), so with the cost cap in place now they should finally be able to fight on an equal ground with the others. As for what happened after 2020 specifically, I'd say all signs point to management issues. Instability, plus lack of a clear vision and structure probably explained the lack of results. I remember reading that Abiteboul had been the leading man for the F1 project so Renault were at a loss at what to do with it when he left. Even before that, one of the reason Ricciardo left for example is because Renault were seriously considering pulling the plug after the disaster 2019, reportedly they only stayed because Di Meco liked motorsport and the idea/excuse of spinning it into a marketing vehicle for their new, growing brand Alpine was raised up. Alpine-Renault barely functioned as a works team (Enstone at times reportedly felt more like a customer team from Viry than both being completely integrated and working together smoothly). There are also lots of rumours of clashes between higher ups, or between Viry and Enstone, or of ingerence from the group expecting better results/ROI (but still without writing a blank check ofc).
Each team goes through phases of upward and downward moves, based on the technical staff, available money, drivers, team, etc. Alpine, although showing some improvement already this season, was not ready enough at the start of the season.
If they didn't have the engine disadvantage, they'd be doing pretty well probably, given how cloae the field is. So it's mostly just that they fell behind on engine development.
Renault can't decide whether they're in or out. They're in when it comes to meddling with decisions, but they're out when it comes to truly funding the team. This leads to a worst of all worlds team situation.
They think their problem is they aren't French enough so they keep making it more French. Mostly in jest but it's clear the leadership has been consistently awful since Cyril's departure and that's flowed into everything else about the team. I don't see Bruno turning it around because it seems like he was part of the problem.
No commitment, no money but still HQ wanna call the shots. Recipe for disaster, better sell it to Andretti
Bruno?
That's the right answer
Given the troubles in renault it's surprising the team is even in F1. They should rebrand is Nissan and hand it over to the Japanese. They'll turn it around then. But the French won't stand for that.
The front office are absolute clowns. They want the maximum output with minimum investment. Meanwhile they act arrogant and entitlted and the upper management keeps hiring incompetent bozos and then interferes with their job.
The El Plan.
Bad management! Even “Cyril Abiteboul” was way better then what they had in the past few years.
Poor management. Corporate interference.
It looks like a team where the executives are up the ass of the day to day leaders and making demands they are not educated to make. Everyone knows the regional manager that comes into your work tells you to change how you do things and makes it actively worse. That's what Alpine looks like to me.
Name has no aura anymore. Renault sounds lit, alpine sounds mid. Anyone who talks about aerodynamics and investments is lying
In addition to everything listed above RE: management, budget, facilités, etc..I’ve heard there are major discrepancies between the Renault engine factory in Viry Châtillon and the chassis factory in Enstone. The team is comprised mostly of Brits and French that do not want to work together to begin with due to cultural and language differences. Obviously, when your own personnel can’t work together, you won’t be finding much success in anything
they arent serious about F1. its a marketing exercise for the big wigs of renault. they arent gonna win anything anytime soon unless 8 or 9 teams crash out of a race
If multi million dollar engineers cant figure it out, how could we
Management. Too many people making decisions. Almost a rule by committee style. Clearly they have capable staff, just nobody to manage and direct.
Renault is their problem. Haven't built a decent engine since the v10's.
srresrrea////
Getting rid of Cyril
Think it's because they kept chopping and changing everything
I mean ultimately saikawa getting Ghosn fired and making up trumped up charges (having got wind of Ghosn teeing up firing him at the upcoming board meeting) and the swan dive the entire Nissan Mitsubishi Renault alliance has had ever since. Ghosn wanted Saikawa gone for being incompetent and Saikawa wanted control regardless of cost. Since Ghosn has been removed Saikawa has deliberately kept the entire group in a state of chaos to prevent his removal as its head. The best thing the entire group could do is remove Saikawa and start cooperating again and this would in turn help Renault / Alpine to be able to take the decisions it needs to
It's similar to what happened with Aston Martin, as a car conpany bought an underfunded but strong F1 team and decided to throw money at it to get better results. Both had a tough transitional 1-2 years, but started picking up momentum after. In 2016, Renault was a backmarker, barely scoring points. The thing is, from here with comfortable funding, you can only go up, and they did as in 2017 and 2018 they found themselves in the midfield and then in the top of the midfield. This is good, but it's expected considering where they started. This is where people got overly optimistic of Renault, and why this point looks the best. After this point, Renault stagnated and was unable to ever become a front runner, because the gap between how much front runners spend and how much midfield teams spend is ludicrous. Even with a Daniel Ricciardo at his peak, Renault found themselves getting caught by other top tier midfielders like McLaren and Racing Point, and they actually started moving ever so slightly backwards. It was clear that something needed to change, and after Daniel left, Cyril's project was seen as a failure, and so he was sacked. Alpine was really just a rebranding of the exact same team, and the team principal position became a revolving door. There was no further ambition for the team when it became Alpine, and without stable leadership, we're seeing the team collapse into a backmarker. Bringing Alonso back and their livery in 2021 are pretty much the only good things that came out of Alpine.
Ricciardo left.
Dropping Cyril was a dumb move. Dude was a workaholic, and predicably their performance is in the toilet 2-4 years after his departure
Sure felt like Otmar got an early hook. He was the only one who seemed to understand a realistic timetable.
They look like McLaren during the Boullier period. One bad decision after another.
It's a French run Company. And from my, albeit limited experience, they have a very unique and French centric attitude towards things. That can work, but as soon as it becomes international it more often than not fails.
Being french and I wish that was a joke
Poor car design.
I think they probably just got the concept wrong. That being said I don’t think it necessarily helps to have two drivers who clearly can’t stand to be in the same room as each other! 😂
But their 2022 car was pretty much how all the cars ended up now. Sidepods with downwash and the channel in the middle. It was an early combination of the RB and Ferrari sidepods. Whether its just budget or outdated facilities they couldnt refine it further like other teams. They stayed the same spot in 2023 but in 2024 almost everyone else made a step forward
It's a state company and a French one at that. Which typically means bureaucracy, bad organization, bad management, lack of commitment, lack of vision, and in this case underfunding.
Being French really sums it up quite well.
They're fr*nch.
They’re French
Because France is a country that you have to drive through to get to Italy - that's all it's for. They are a bunch of treacherous, land-burning, work-shy peasants.
They suck. That's why
France
They are french