Renault's de Meo targets race wins for Alpine from 2022

Renault boss Luca De Meo says the Alpine F1 team must be in a position to score podiums and win "one or two races" by 2022 at the latest.

De Meo who took the reins of Renault a year ago has presided over several significant strategic changes at the French automotive group, including a rebranding of its Formula 1 team to Alpine, the company's niche sportscar manufacturer.

Armed with the skills of Fernando Alonso, who returns to the sport this year and who will be flanked by the equally talented Esteban Ocon, Alpine ambitions to lead Grand Prix racing's mid-field this season and to score podiums before undertaking a proper title challenge from 2022 and target race wins.

In an interview with Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine, De Meo said that several of Renault's best engineers had been redeployed at Alpine, expecting the latter to become a team "seen as often as possible on television and in the newspapers from 2022 at the latest, that regularly makes it onto the podium and wins one or two races".

Alpine's efforts this season will be guided by former Suzuki MotoGP boss Davide Brivio, whom de Meo was instrumental in attracting to F1, and who will report to new Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi who has replaced Renault F1's former managing director Cyril Abiteboul.

"He is certainly the outgoing world champion of Moto GP with Suzuki, on two wheels," he said earlier this year. "But it doesn't matter if there are four wheels now.

"He is an excellent professional, he knows the feel of a track, the importance of having a close-knit team, entrusting everyone with a specific role, he knows how to organize the work."

• Read also: Renault boss de Meo lays out Alpine F1's clear-cut goal for 2021

While de Meo is a proponent of Formula 1 as a brand enhancer, the Italian also believes in the sport's ability to develop technologies for the road car industry.

As such, the Renault chief executive is banking on a "greener", more sustainable F1 in the future, thanks in part to the use of biofuels, a field of development currently backed by the FIA.

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