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Alpine employees in France will go on strike alongside a protest at the Italian Grand Prix, in opposition to Renault’s plan to axe its Formula 1 engine programme.
The Renault works team wants to switch to a customer supply from Mercedes from 2026, after a decision from chairman Luca de Meo to pursue a more cost-effective future.
But the Alpine Racing Works Council (or CSE: Comite Social et Economique), which represents workers at the Viry-Chatillon facility, believes abandoning the French engine would be a “betrayal” of the original Alpine vision and a “disgraceful abandonment of the team’s legacy and 50 years of high-tech history and expertise”.
On Friday, “around a hundred employees” will be present at Monza on a trip organised by the CSE to publicly protest this plan.
There will be two groups spread across grandstands on the main straight and the exit of Parabolica, displaying a banner “with a clear and non-aggressive message, advocating for the retention of a French engine in F1”, while dressed in a white T-shirt with the Alpine logo and the message #ViryOnTrack, and wearing a black armband.
The black armband will also be adopted “if possible” by trackside employees in the Alpine garage.
Meanwhile, back in Viry-Chatillon, “the vast majority of employees who could not travel to the event will be on strike in solidarity with this movement”, from 9am to 3pm.
There will be “signs of discontent…clearly displayed” and local officials will be in attendance as the city itself “has called on elected officials and the public to be present”.
None of this action will “prevent track operations from taking place”, the CSE says.
Before the Mercedes engine deal can be finalised, Renault and Alpine are working through a formal review of what is being called a ‘transformation project’ for Viry-Chatillon, which will be redirected to other Alpine and Renault-related activities.
That has been met with strong resistance from the workers on-site, who accuse Renault management of being “deaf to any dialogue”.
They call the plan “a shock and a disaster for automotive innovation, French technological sovereignty, and industrial innovation” and believe that the Alpine brand objectives can be achieved while persevering with the F1 engine - which has been a disappointment in the V6 turbo-hybrid era.
THE PROGRESS BEING ABANDONED
In an extensive document seen by The Race, the CSE admits “the engine suffers from a performance deficit due to a poor anticipation of the 2014 technical regulation change” and claims it has accounted for “approximately 20% of the total performance deficit of the car”.
But it has criticised the Renault Group’s destabilising management of the entire project with four technical directors at Viry and team principals at Enstone, and pins the rest of the deficit on “the Enstone factory chassis, which struggles to improve amid successive leadership changes”.
The CSE is adamant that the intensive work already conducted for the 2026 engine, which is being built to vastly different rules and a near 50-50 split between internal combustion and electrical power, has yielded a “technological breakthrough”.
They say that millions has already been invested and spent on the 2026 project, with more than 100 “groundbreaking” concepts explored and nearly one third of those showing “promising performance on the test bench and expected to be incorporated into” the 2026 engine.
The plan was to integrate this into a test engine by the end of 2024 that is already approaching the expected performance target for 2026, has not shown any “critical” reliability failures in testing, and has a 12% reduction in length to improve chassis integration.
But instead of being able to persevere with a “well-conceived engine with clear potential”, and pursuing a claimed “0.5 seconds per lap” gain from custom integration, the shutdown of the F1 engine “resonates like a definitive end to F1 activities in France in 2026”.
It called it “a one-way journey with no return: a technological barrier too high to overcome, a brain drain of elite skills, and prohibitively expensive investments” - because it will be “too costly to envisage a return” to F1 in the future.
‘INCOMPREHENSIBLE’ LOGIC
The CSE has also criticised other aspects of the rationale of the ‘transformation’ plan, regarding how it will supposedly aid Viry.
The skills of Viry’s staff, it says, are not aligned with where innovation in the automotive sector is focused on, namely battery chemistry and industrialisation, ‘software-defined vehicles’, and autonomous driving.
It also states that more than 80% of the site's operations are tied to F1, as is its quality and appeal to workers - who “will have no choice but to leave France to continue their Formula 1 careers abroad”. The CSE suggests that this strategy is being deliberately pursued “to delay and minimise the impact of an expensive voluntary redundancy plan”.
“Mr De Meo assured us that the soul of the Alpine brand must be nourished by its roots and that there was no question of severing them,” the CSE says.
“In September 2023, he committed in front of the hundreds of employees at Enstone and Viry-Chatillon to align financial resources with the imperative needs for technological innovation.
“We do not understand what justifies killing this elite F1 entity that is the Viry-Chatillon site and betraying its legacy and DNA by implanting a Mercedes heart or any other into our Alpine F1.
“The announcement of the end of the development and production of French engines for Formula 1 is incomprehensible.
“We cannot conceive that Alpine and the Renault Group would betray their purpose and damage their image, which is why we urge Mr de Meo and his board of directors to reverse this decision.”
Alpine's response
Alpine responded later on Thursday to address the planned strike action and Monza protest.
“We are aware of some activities planned this weekend from staff of Viry," the statement read.
"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.”
