Alpine has confirmed that it will use engines and gearboxes built by Mercedes-Benz when the new era of F1 regulations take hold in 2026.
The move has long been expected: Rumours about parent firm Renault’s wavering commitment to developing its own power unit began bubbling earlier this year, and it was officially axed last month.
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It ends almost half a century of Renault involvement in F1 power, a period that includes 12 constructors’ titles and 11 drivers’ championships. Only Ferrari can boast more success.
However the last decade or so has been disappointing: it’s widely agreed that Renault has the least powerful engine on the grid behind Mercedes, Ferrari and Honda, and with development now frozen (unless it improves reliability) there’s no prospect of the team catching up before the end of 2025.
And until its shock double podium at the Sao Paulo GP a couple of weekends back, the team had tumbled to ninth in the constructors. Oh dear.
So given Renault’s struggles since the start of the turbo-hybrid era, and the utter domination that Mercedes enjoyed from 2014 until fairly recently… you can see what Alpine is thinking by jumping from its own ship into one powered by AMG.
As a customer of Mercedes, Alpine will get both engines and gearboxes ‘for the duration of the new regulation era’. So at least until 2030, and possibly beyond that.
NOTE: This story first appeared on TopGear.com. Minor edits have been made.
