Huge Renault F1 2026 engine update as Alpine team boss confirms withdrawal

Bruno Famin has confirmed his departure from Alpine, and has shed some light on the situation regarding the team’s power unit supply.

Alpine will have a new team boss for the second half of the 2024 season, with Bruno Famin confirming he will step down from his role as team principal by the end of August.

Bruno Famin confirms change of role in latest Alpine revolution

As reported yesterday by PlanetF1.com, Famin will leave his role as team boss at Alpine just a year after taking over the role, which was originally in an interim capacity, as he replaced Otmar Szafnauer after the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix.

Alpine is yet to confirm the identity of the new team boss, but PlanetF1.com understands the leading candidate is Hitech GP founder Oliver Oakes.

“I will dedicate my time to Viry-Chatillon activities from the first of September,” Famin confirmed in the FIA press conference at the Belgian Grand Prix.

“I will step down from the team principal role by the end of August.

“For the last year, I’ve been doubling my activities with the vice-president of motorsport role where I am managing Viry-Chatillon with endurance, Dakar, Formula project that we’re managing there and, on top of that, acting as the managing director of BWT Alpine F1 team.

“Considering the stake of the new project at Viry, I think it will be much more useful for the company to dedicate my time to Viry activities – I mean all the motorsport activities and onto the transformation programme.

“Let’s not forget that the guys at Viry are doing an amazing job. We all know that, since 2014, we haven’t had the best engine in Viry, but it’s one of the engines which has improved the most since 2014.

“Now, we’re still not at the top, but the improvement has been very good and the job, that is being done in Viry to prepare the 2026 engine is incredible – we fixed very high targets and I am confident that we can reach that target.

“The figures we have from the dynos are very good, all the people very involved are very proficient, very skilled. It’s a very difficult situation there and all the people are worth us dedicating the necessary time to be with them on this project, which is huge.

“We have a new executive advisor, I have no problem with Flavio – the little time we spent together. I have absolutely no issue, no problem, everybody knows him.

“He has his own way, his own goal, and I have no problem. But I think it will be clearer on that side if I step down from the two principal role in F1.”

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Bruno Famin explains speculation over future of Alpine power unit supply

The Alpine team boss also moved to clear up the exact circumstances surrounding the F1 team’s power unit supply as speculation has swirled recently about the possibility the Renault Group is seeking to pull the plug on F1 power unit development.

Famin confirmed that a proposal has been issued to the staff representative at Viry-Chatillon with the intention of reassigning the staff to developing new technology more relevant for the Renault Group as a whole, meaning the withdrawal of Renault as a power unit manufacturer from F1.

“We have presented a project, the project is not the power unit,” Famin said.

“The project is much much bigger than that. It’s a transformation project at the level of the Alpine brand.

“Alpine is developing as a huge project of development with seven new models in the coming years with high-end technology. It’s very ambitious to build this new sporting brand and to make it known outside of France everywhere in the world.

“The project which has been presented, at the beginning of the week, to the staff representative in Viry-Chatillon is to reallocate the resources from one side to another – one side being the development of the Formula 1 power unit, which is already being made in Viry – to dedicate those resources and skills to developing new technologies for the new products of the brand.

“One of the consequences of this projects, if it’s accepted, would be for Alpine F1 team to buy a power unit instead of developing its own power unit and then, we’ll have more resources to develop the brand and a different power unit to race with for the Formula 1 team.”

While confirming that Alpine is seeking to participate in F1 with a new power unit supply deal as a customer team, Famin stopped short of confirming whether or not discussions with Mercedes are taking place at this point, but did state the intention is to only make the change for the 2026 season – the beginning of the new power unit regulations – and not 2025, as has been rumoured.

“The project, which has been presented to the staff representative and to different governance bodies, is talking about 2026 onwards on the power unit,” he said.

“Of course, we are talking to different manufacturers and, for the time being, nothing is done because it’s a project… we have to follow in France, with unions, we have a social process which is very strict to follow.

“We cannot take any decision until we reach the end of that process. But, for the time being, we are talking to some PU manufacturers but we cannot sign anything until this process is over.”

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