Shades of ‘the Luca doth protest an excessive amount of’, as Renault CEO insists that Alpine F1 operation is just not on the market.
The declare comes days after Renault introduced that it might be withdrawing from the game (once more) on the finish of 2025, insisting that the explanation for the choice was not monetary however primarily that it did not imagine it might be aggressive below the most recent guidelines overhaul.
Regardless of the purpose for the choice, the very fact stays why would Renault need to withdraw as an engine producer but proceed to bankroll a workforce now utilizing engines equipped by a significant rival (Mercedes)?
Chatting with L’Equipe, Luca de Meo insists that the workforce is just not on the market.
“I will not promote, I am not silly,” he says. “Being in F1 is crucial for the Alpine model. We’re in a closed membership. It brings credibility for the model amongst motor racing followers. We do not want the cash.”
Requested about claims that Flavio Briatore was introduced again on board to organize for the sale, he replies: “I learn that he was tasked with packaging the undertaking to finally promote the workforce. It is fully false.
“Each fortnight I get calls from financiers, eccentrics, who need to enter F1,” he provides. “They know that after 2026 will probably be rather more costly.”
When it comes to the choice to withdraw as a producer, the Italian insists that it makes extra sense to buy-in Mercedes engines for $20m (£15m) a yr versus the event of its personal energy unit which he claims work out at between $220.5 (£168m) and $275.7m (£210m) a yr.
He additionally claims that having chassis and engine manufacturing in several international locations is a matter, although this hasn’t hampered the likes of Pink Bull-Honda.
“At Enstone they’re very unbiased, used to working below completely different colors. I ought to have re-grouped every little thing however it might have been in England. Arduous, no?,” he says.
He additionally believes that followers are extra excited by drivers and groups versus the engines, thus making Renault, regardless of its huge funding, “invisible” and subsequently unattractive to sponsors, this from the CEO of an organization broadly considered probably the most modern to ever grace the game.
“Two extra years like that and the undertaking would have deflated fully,” he says, believing that success with Mercedes engines will make Alpine extra seen.
It is like Lou Reed’s painter buddy Donald – thought to really be singer-songwriter John Mellencamp – tells him, as remembers within the music Final Nice American Whale on the very good New York album: “Stick a fork of their ass and switch ’em over, they’re finished!”
