Formula 1: Renault to end engine programme after 2025 season

Renault will end its Formula 1 engine programme after the 2025 season, the French car company has announced.

The decision means Renault’s Alpine team will have to buy engines from another manufacturer, which is expected to be Mercedes, from 2026.

Renault’s F1 engine facility at Viry-Chatillon in Paris will instead be devoted to development of electric motor and battery technologies, as well as Renault’s remaining motorsport activities.

The move brings to an end nearly 50 years of history following Renault’s pioneering decision to enter F1 in 1977 with the sport’s first turbocharged engine.

Since then, Renault has made F1 engines continuously other than over a three-year semi-hiatus from 1998-2000.

The company is one of the most successful in F1, having won world titles with drivers such as Michael Schumacher, Alain Prost, Sebastian Vettel, Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill, with the Williams, Benetton and Red Bull teams.

Renault’s own team also won drivers’ and constructors’ title doubles with Fernando Alonso in 2005 and 2006.

The decision to end the F1 engine programme comes after a decade of limited success for Renault/Alpine in F1 since the advent of hybrid power-units in 2014, and the competitive decline of the company’s team in recent years.

Alpine won the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix with Esteban Ocon, and finished fourth in the world championship in 2020 and 2022, and fifth in 2021.

But last year they slipped to sixth and in 2024 they are ninth of 10 teams with six races remaining.

A statement from the Renault Group made almost no mention of the decision to end its F1 engine programme other than to say that F1 activities at Viry would “continue until the end of the 2025 season”.

In recent weeks, a group representing the employees at Renault’s motorsport base in Paris had staged protests at the Italian Grand Prix and held talks with Renault chief executive officer Luca de Meo.

But these had no effect on a decision that had been expected within F1 for some months.

Renault’s statement said that it would set up an “F1 monitoring unit” which would “aim to maintain employees’ knowledge and skills in this sport and remain at the forefront of innovation” with the other projects to which the factory would now be devoted.

The statement said all employees affected by the decision would be offered a position within the new structure, which has been named Alpine Hypertech.

A statement from the Alpine F1 team said: “This is a decision taken at Group level and by Alpine Management. The team remains fully focused on the 2024 FIA Formula 1 World Championship and working hard to deliver the best on-track results for the remainder of the season.”

Motorsport engineering at Viry will now be focused on Alpine’s World Endurance Championship programme, and Formula E and rally-raid programmes for Renault’s partner brands.