The Alpine implosion
Discussion
StevieBee said:
TheDeuce said:
thegreenhell said:
The branding switch to Alpine wasn't anything to do with distancing Renault from the team's poor performance. It was supposed to be about building awareness of the brand for a major relaunch of Alpine, particularly in America. They have a lot of new Alpine models coming through soon.
I'm struggling to imagine them claiming any other reason for the change.Were the team and engines performing well in the sport, I'm fairly certain the team would still be called Renault, and the engines would still be in production...
Alpines appeal to an informed buyer some who may be swayed by their presence in F1, recognising that participation is an indicator of intent and heritage; part of the brand allure. Renault buyers lack that level of F1 sporting nuance. Had they started to win races and championships, I'm fairly certain the Renault name would have returned in a big way.
The average joe car buyer who is also aware of F1 probably assumes there's a corner of the factory that pumps out the road cars that also makes the F1 cars, or at least it's the same brains working on both projects. For that buyer, seeing Renault embarrass themselves (and their F1 customers...) for the last decade isn't useful marketing at all.
It goes without saying that the PR guys announcing the team name change will only focus on the positive benefits to Alpine's future, not the cessation of negative connotations to the former Renault brand.
TheDeuce said:
thegreenhell said:
Joe Saward reports in his latest blog that he has heard that Cadillac have just acquired Renault's 2026 engine IP.
Better than starting from scratch I guess.rallycross said:
I skipped through a bit - am I right that the gist is they had effectively done the deal with Piastri, but the French board fluffed the paperwork, caused a delay, thought it would all be OK somehow and then Piastri got nabbed by McLaren?If that's the level of fecklessness at play, it's not surprising they failed when it comes to the more technical aspects of building and fielding an F1 car and engine... It's obviously going to be a challenge to build a reliable PU and an effective race winning car if the upper management can't fill out forms properly or lick a stamp.
Im interested in how this would work. All the information must be in french.
Americans struggle to tell the difference between kilometres and miles and just assume its the same thing.
It must be harder to figure out what a finished product does and how it was made than do what you know.
Americans struggle to tell the difference between kilometres and miles and just assume its the same thing.
It must be harder to figure out what a finished product does and how it was made than do what you know.
hondajack85 said:
Im interested in how this would work. All the information must be in french.
Americans struggle to tell the difference between kilometres and miles and just assume its the same thing.
It must be harder to figure out what a finished product does and how it was made than do what you know.
The IP would include everything from start to finish of their engine development, most likely including a few key staff members to work with Cadillac for a period of time too.Americans struggle to tell the difference between kilometres and miles and just assume its the same thing.
It must be harder to figure out what a finished product does and how it was made than do what you know.
American engineers won't be stumped by metric to imperial conversations, and most of the data, drawings and modelling will be easy to understand regardless of language. Engineering is effectively a universal language.
TheDeuce said:
The IP would include everything from start to finish of their engine development, most likely including a few key staff members to work with Cadillac for a period of time too.
American engineers won't be stumped by metric to imperial conversations, and most of the data, drawings and modelling will be easy to understand regardless of language. Engineering is effectively a universal language.
Even if its possible to take it on, im struggling to think they would suddenly be capable of developing it going forward,and would be left behind by honda,mercedes and Ferrari.American engineers won't be stumped by metric to imperial conversations, and most of the data, drawings and modelling will be easy to understand regardless of language. Engineering is effectively a universal language.
Still ,they make the A bomb and landed on the moon.
Mind you when they got shown up, they banned concord lol.
hondajack85 said:
TheDeuce said:
The IP would include everything from start to finish of their engine development, most likely including a few key staff members to work with Cadillac for a period of time too.
American engineers won't be stumped by metric to imperial conversations, and most of the data, drawings and modelling will be easy to understand regardless of language. Engineering is effectively a universal language.
Even if its possible to take it on, im struggling to think they would suddenly be capable of developing it going forward,and would be left behind by honda,mercedes and Ferrari.American engineers won't be stumped by metric to imperial conversations, and most of the data, drawings and modelling will be easy to understand regardless of language. Engineering is effectively a universal language.
Still ,they make the A bomb and landed on the moon.
Mind you when they got shown up, they banned concord lol.
But seriously, I have worked with loads of US engineers and they're good at free thinking, not half as dumb as a quick cultural assessment of their country might suggest...
The Renault hybrid power unit project was a comedy from day one, it's been hopeless. But that doesn't mean it's not of value as a learning resource for a new team to benefit from. The thing is, whilst it's the worst F1 PU IP they could buy and learn from, it's also the only one they can buy - no one else is selling, so the new team can either learn from a decades worth of experience and trial and error that resulted in a PU that was only about 95% as good as it needed to be, or... they can start from complete scratch and figure the entire thing out themselves.
I can see why it makes sense to buy the IP, for the right price. They're likely to at least end up with a functioning PU out of the doors that way, even if it's only a starting point to hopefully go on to do a lot better than Renault did. They certainly have more money than Renault spent in F1 in the last decade.
As an engineer, I would rather look at a losers homework than nobodies homework. It's still a fast track to learn from, and you can learn a decent amount from someone else's failures.
TheDeuce said:
As an engineer, I would rather look at a losers homework than nobodies homework. It's still a fast track to learn from, and you can learn a decent amount from someone else's failures.
I dont think being a few 10th of a second off means all your work was rubbish ,but I look forward to see what happens. Worked on the design of F1 hybrid PU's at the beginning and very end of the current era at two manufacturers on both the ICE and ESS sides
Knowing a little bit of how complicated everything is, I'm going to defend Renaults hybrid efforts as compendable and far from rubbish as naively suggested
Not really a surprise that Viry ended up with the worst engine
They were never given the opportunity of employing the depth of experienced talent or the budget/investment spend Mercedes, Ferrari and Honda all benefited from
Knowing a little bit of how complicated everything is, I'm going to defend Renaults hybrid efforts as compendable and far from rubbish as naively suggested
Not really a surprise that Viry ended up with the worst engine
They were never given the opportunity of employing the depth of experienced talent or the budget/investment spend Mercedes, Ferrari and Honda all benefited from
rallycross said:
The whole interview is pretty good to be fairhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5qyy0O5ztk
Evercross said:
"Alpine" have signed a long-term engine supply deal with Mercedes starting 2026.
How long now before the brand association with Renault is dropped and the whole thing is put up for sale?
Wonder if this would also provide scope for Mercedes to Group to have their own second team like RB. They no longer have as much hold on Williams to get their youth drivers a drive. Team SMART AMG. We've all seen how advantageous it can be to have 4 drivers on the grid.How long now before the brand association with Renault is dropped and the whole thing is put up for sale?
Jayho said:
Evercross said:
"Alpine" have signed a long-term engine supply deal with Mercedes starting 2026.
How long now before the brand association with Renault is dropped and the whole thing is put up for sale?
Wonder if this would also provide scope for Mercedes to Group to have their own second team like RB. They no longer have as much hold on Williams to get their youth drivers a drive. Team SMART AMG. We've all seen how advantageous it can be to have 4 drivers on the grid.How long now before the brand association with Renault is dropped and the whole thing is put up for sale?
DanielSan said:
Jayho said:
Evercross said:
"Alpine" have signed a long-term engine supply deal with Mercedes starting 2026.
How long now before the brand association with Renault is dropped and the whole thing is put up for sale?
Wonder if this would also provide scope for Mercedes to Group to have their own second team like RB. They no longer have as much hold on Williams to get their youth drivers a drive. Team SMART AMG. We've all seen how advantageous it can be to have 4 drivers on the grid.How long now before the brand association with Renault is dropped and the whole thing is put up for sale?
The second team could be branded as anything, no reason why not Smart, although that's a tough link to make between the road cars and any sort of performance/racing pedigree!
I doubt it'll happen though. Toto was going for significant ownership of Williams back when the Williams family were at the helm, it didn't happen so he ended up buying into Merc instead. It would have made all sorts of sense to invest and attempt to take over Williams back then, the team is worth 4x more now the cost caps are in place. But... buying a second team now is £1bn+ purchase that might be hard to justify unless there is a perfect brand to attach to it.
hondajack85 said:
TheDeuce said:
The IP would include everything from start to finish of their engine development, most likely including a few key staff members to work with Cadillac for a period of time too.
American engineers won't be stumped by metric to imperial conversations, and most of the data, drawings and modelling will be easy to understand regardless of language. Engineering is effectively a universal language.
Even if its possible to take it on, im struggling to think they would suddenly be capable of developing it going forward,and would be left behind by honda,mercedes and Ferrari.American engineers won't be stumped by metric to imperial conversations, and most of the data, drawings and modelling will be easy to understand regardless of language. Engineering is effectively a universal language.
Still ,they make the A bomb and landed on the moon.
Mind you when they got shown up, they banned concord lol.
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