Employees of the engine manufacturer for the Alpine Formula One team are to stage a protest at Monza on the opening day of the Italian Grand Prix on Friday. They will express their anger at the plan of the team’s owner, the Renault Group, to cease production of their engine by the 2026 season.
The engine is manufactured at the Renault facility at Viry-Châtillon, in the southern suburbs of Paris, where the company has been designing and developing the units since 1977. Renault engines have claimed 169 race wins and 10 constructors’ titles with Williams, Benetton and Red Bull plus two as a works team.
The Renault F1 team were rebadged as Alpine, the group’s sportscar brand, in 2021 and the engine manufacturing facility and personnel as Alpine Racing France. However, in July, the management of the Renault group announced it was investigating a plan to cease the manufacture of engines and for Alpine F1 to use customer engines from a supplier, likely to be Mercedes.
The decision was described as a shock and disaster by representatives of the Alpine Racing France works council. On Thursday, they announced their intention to stage a protest at Monza during free practice. Groups of employees will be spread across two grandstands and display a banner. They will wear white T-shirts bearing the Alpine logo and the message #ViryOnTrack and black armbands and they have requested members of the Alpine team wear the armbands. Employees at Viry-Châtillon will go on strike in solidarity.
A statement from the employee representatives of Alpine Racing France was damning. “We do not understand what justifies killing this elite F1 entity that is the Viry-Châtillon site and betraying its legacy and DNA by implanting a Mercedes heart or any other into our Alpine F1,” it read. “The announcement of the end of the development and production of French engines for Formula One is incomprehensible. We cannot conceive that Alpine and the Renault Group would betray their purpose and damage their image.”
They have urged the chief executive of Renault, Luca de Meo, to reverse the decision but noted their protest had been caused by “a management team deaf to any dialogue”.
A spokesperson for the Comité Social et Économique of Alpine Racing France, representing the workers at Viry, expressed their exasperation with Renault. “Mainly [it’s] the frustration led by the feeling of not being heard by the top management,” they said. “We truly believe in the Viry powerunit project for 2026. We want it to go on track and to fight with its competitors. The 2026 Alpine engine-car package has real potential.”
With the Alpine F1 team based at Enstone in Oxfordshire and France no longer hosting a grand prix, the Alpine Racing works council warned that closing down engine production would result in the permanent cessation of F1 activities in France, which has enjoyed a rich history in the sport.
The factory has been working on the new engine for 2026 since 2022 and fired it up for the first time this year in pursuit of what they described as a technological breakthrough. The works council warned that ditching the project would lead to engineers and technicians leaving France, after which the cost and the technological barrier would be too high for manufacture to return.
The team and the engineering plant at Viry-Châtillon have been in turmoil in recent years. There have been four technical directors at Viry and four team principals at Alpine since 2021. Renault is yet to comment on the planned protest but has cited its plan as a cost-saving measure, noting the €120m (£101m) engine development costs against a maximum engine supply cost charge of €17m, which is set by the FIA.
A spokesperson from Alpine F1 said: “We are aware of some activities planned this weekend from staff of Viry. We understand from their communication these will be peaceful protests and will not impact team operations. The transformation project is still being evaluated and no decision has been taken yet by Alpine’s management.
“The dialogue, which opened since the project was presented to the Viry employee representatives in July, is important to Alpine’s management and will be pursued in the upcoming weeks.”
Alpine’s last win was at the Hungarian Grand Prix in 2021 and their best finish in the constructors’ championship was fourth in 2022. Renault last took a title with their engine with Red Bull in 2013 but were found wanting after the shift to the turbo-hybrid engine era in 2014 and have failed to match the other manufacturers. They last supplied a customer team in 2020 and the team is eighth in the championship this year.
