Famin explains why making F1 engines no longer makes sense

Departing Alpine team principal Bruno Famin says that F1's financial rules are the reason why Renault is rumoured to be on the brink of pulling out of manufacturing engines for the sport.

It was confirmed at Spa that Famin would be leaving his role with the team over the summer break, with Oliver Oakes taking over the role from Zandvoort with Famin stepping back to other roles within the Renault organisation.

Famin had previously been in charge of the company's engine project at Viry,. but the power unit had underperformed in recent years leaving the Alpine works team struggling to match its rivals.

Now it's also emerged that Alpine is closing in on a deal to use Mercedes customer engines in future, meaning that Renault will no longer be a F1 engine manufacturer.

As he prepared to leave his current role, Famin explained to the media why carrying on with its power unit programme no longer made sense to Renault.

• Read also: Alpine F1 confirm Famin to step down from team principal role

“It’s a fact that the business model, to call it like that, is a bit weird,” Famin told the official F1 channel last week. "The Concorde Agreement, the system of the prize fund, is benefiting the teams only.

"On the other hand the FIA financial and sporting regulations makes it mandatory for the PU manufacturer to sell, at a capped price, power units to teams who would like to have it.”

From 2026 the new era of regulations will introduce a cost cap of $130 million which had been designed to make the sport more appealing to new manufacturers like Audi to enter F1.

But Famin says that it still make more sense financially to be a customer team like McLaren or Aston Martin rather than one of the manufacturer teams like Mercedes or Ferrari.

“When you see the costs in developing a PU compared to buying a PU, there is a huge difference,” he argued. “That huge difference is not compensated by any prize fund because all the prize fund goes to the team.

"We are not talking about performance, we are talking about a huge difference in money," he continued. “There is no secret in the difference, because we know - it’s official and it’s public.

“The cost cap, the amount of money which is allowed to PU manufacturers and the PU supply price and the price that the PU manufacturer has to sell the PU, it’s also public.

"It’s something like €120 million in one hand, 17 in the other hand - you make the calculation. [Each] year, of course," he added.

Famin admitted that the current Renault power unit has been down on power since the V6 hybrid turbo regulations were introduced and engine development frozen at the end of 2021, leaving Renault no way of making up the shortfall.

“Renault totally missed but now we are 10 to 15 kilowatts down,” he said. “The power unit is on average two-tenths of lap time. On average because it depends on the track, of course.”

Famin said that left them scrambling to find an extra second from the car and chassis design, but this had also proved problematic. “We cannot hide behind the power unit," he acknowledged.

“There are some points where we have no leverage, like the engine where we know that we are in the frozen period and we cannot improve the hardware.

“But the car has different problems,” he conceded. “Lack of traction, lack of downforce, too much drag, not enough power. We had to improve everything.

We also had to reduce the weight a bit. We were a bit overweight at the start of the season," he noted. "Then we had to understand the car again and make some small upgrades, or adapt the set-up to make the car really work a bit better.”

Despite the latest change of top level team management and the rumours about the end of their engine programme, Renault Group chief executive officer Luca de Meo is insistent that Alpine is not for sale.

Andretti Global and Chinese automotive giant Geely are among the parties said to be circling for an opening on the current F1 grid.

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