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Alpine officially switching to Mercedes Power for 2026

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Jericoke:
https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/42344319/f1-alpine-use-mercedes-engines-2026-season

Perhaps not unexpected news, but it's official.

Always sad to see people/organizations leave the sport (assuming they're not internationally sanctioned criminals, sporting cheats or general frauds), and the Renault name has certainly been a strong one in the history of F1 power units.

But time marches on, there are ups and downs, and if the company isn't prepared to do what it takes to restore Renault power to be competitive, it makes sense to shut it down rather than limp along.

We are getting new technical partners in F1, From Honda, RBPT and Audi providing full works, to Ford and Toyota joining as technical partners, and General Motors making an effort to get their foot in the door, so losing Renault isn't a disaster for the sport in terms of innovation and competition.

It does feel weird for a race team to be powered by a rival manufacturer.  It's not part of the announcement whether the Mercedes power units will be badged as 'Mercedes' or if they may run under different names (as often happened with Renault engines in the past!)

John S:
Merc will insist it's badged Mercedes Jeri, have no doubt of that.

They already power both McLaren & Aston Martin so it's not really unusual for them to supply other manufacturers, maybe these others are not the size of Renault but does it really make a difference?

The cost cap model for F1 makes it more profitable, well less likely to lose much money anyway, to be an engine purchaser than an engine supplier.  :D

Jericoke:

--- Quote from: John S on November 13, 2024, 01:36:58 PM ---Merc will insist it's badged Mercedes Jeri, have no doubt of that.

They already power both McLaren & Aston Martin so it's not really unusual for them to supply other manufacturers, maybe these others are not the size of Renault but does it really make a difference?

The cost cap model for F1 makes it more profitable, well less likely to lose much money anyway, to be an engine purchaser than an engine supplier.  :D

--- End quote ---

Aston Martin, the car company, uses Mercedes engines in their road cars, so it's not really a big deal for them to use the Mercedes badged engines.  McLaren has a history of success running as McLaren-Mercedes, I think they were trying to bring back good vibes, as much as anything else.

Other teams that ran Mercedes engines were privateer teams that I think gained a little status running Mercedes engines, especially in the early turbo hybrid era.

Alpine is in a different situation than anyone else running Mercedes engines.  I don't know what the rules are about supplying engines in terms of branding.  I'm pretty sure there's a fixed cost to use an engine supply (I don't know if it's per unit, or on a season long contract basis, I don't really care), and suppliers are required to be able to supply X number of teams (again, I don't really remember how many X is).  Mercedes may not get a say in what the name of the Alpine power unit is, as long as Alpine and Mercedes are upholding their ends of the deal.

Given that there are murmurs of Mercedes being 'embarrassed' to be outscored by a customer team in McLaren, maybe they aren't keen on being potentially outscored by two customer teams.  Sure, lots of us will know that the Alpine BWT engines are really Mercedes, but I don't think our opinion on Mercedes losing to a customer is as important to Merc.

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