Alpine’s new team boss Bruno Famin doesn’t see the Renault engine’s performance deficit as glaring as described, but admits the power unit isn’t the best
Even though Renault’s engine is so inferior to the competition that even its opponents have taken some pity on it and have argued for an alignment of the power units, Alpine resists talking about its own engine having “so much lessr” power than the others.
The FIA, the world governing body for automobiles, had carried out a power analysis of the current Formula One engines and had concluded that Renault would be around 20 to 30 hp short of the competition, even though the power units had been frozen some time ago.
But because Mercedes, Ferrari & Co. have found performance once again by means of permitted work on reliability, their engines have become stronger – Renault has not. So there has been talk about whether the French should be allowed to rework.
Alpine’s new interim team boss Bruno Famin, however, plays down the drawbacks when asked about the engine having “so much less” power: “I don’t think it’s ‘so much less’,” clarifies Famin, who was appointed engine boss at Renault’s Viry-Chatillon plant in 2022.
“It’s less,” he admits, however. “It’s certainly not the best engine in the field. We made big steps between 2021 and 2022, and still it’s not the best engine.”
“But,” he adds, “I don’t think the engine has so much less power that we can’t improve the package. “
“The goal is to improve our package: the chassis, the engine, which is certainly a bit difficult at this stage, but integration can always be improved, and that’s what we’re going to do,” says Famin.
To what extent Alpine may improve its Renault engine is still open. No concrete solution has yet been presented at the Formula One Commission meeting during the Belgian Grand Prix. It was merely stated that there is this discrepancy between the engines and that they want to solve it.
In return, the manufacturers have agreed to give a mandate to the Engine Advisory Committee to come up with a solution that can then be presented to the Commission.