F1 2026 regulations called into question amid ‘damning’ Renault PU exit threat

Pierre Gasly in the Alpine.

Renault potentially discontinuing their Formula 1 power unit division is a “damning” and “negative” statement of their Viry personnel, said Karun Chandhok, as David Croft claimed it calls into question whether the 2026 regulations are “worth all the pain?”.

Two major announcements came out of the Alpine team over the Belgian GP race weekend, the first being that team principal Bruno Famin would be departing the role, and the other being that a proposal had been submitted to conclude use of the Renault power unit and transition to customer team status.

‘Damning’ Renault news a major knock on F1 2026 regulations?

Sky F1 pit-lane reporter Ted Kravitz, as he listed off a host of race and title-winning drivers with Renault power, suggested that this is a bigger story than many may initially realise.

“So Alain Prost, Rene Arnoux, Jean-Pierre Jabouille, Fernando Alonso, Michael Schumacher, Damon Hill, Nigel Mansell, Ayrton Senna, they’ve all taken advantage of great race-winning engines in Formula 1 from the Renault concern,” he said.

“So not only do we have the departure of Bruno Famin, just a year after the departure of his predecessor Otmar Szafnauer, but then it seems to be the deworksification of Renault in Formula 1.

“And I’m going to say that I think this is a bigger story than you might realise at home.”

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Should Alpine become a customer team, that move will come in F1 2026 when a new era of power units are introduced, alongside revamped chassis regulations. Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has already confirmed “exploratory discussions” took place with Alpine.

And former F1 driver Chandhok has two major takeaways from the Renault news, those being that the 2026 regulations are set to fail on increasing the number of PU manufacturers and secondly, that Renault has expressed a “damning” lack of faith in their Viry engine division.

“There’s a lot of questions around that whole Alpine programme, because if they’ve canned the engine programme, I mean that is big, I agree with Ted,” said Chandhok.

“It’s a big story because the regulations around 2026 were designed to bring more manufacturers in, and net effect, you’ve got Audi but you lost Renault.

“I think secondly, it’s quite a damning statement for Renault as a group if you’re saying essentially, ‘We’re shutting our engine department because we don’t think they’re good enough and we’re going to go to an external supplier’.

“That’s quite a negative statement for the Renault Group to be sending out as a message that they don’t believe their organisation in Viry is capable of producing something that’s competitive enough.”

Sky F1 lead commentator David Croft, picking up on Chandhok’s first point, pondered therefore whether the 2026 regulatory shake-up is actually “worth all the pain.”

Red Bull’s dominance has been whittled away in F1 2024, with the opening 14 rounds of the season producing seven different grand prix winners.

“You’ve held onto Honda, you’ve gained one and you’ve lost one,” said Croft.

“And it does make you wonder, is this 2026 engines worth all the pain? Especially when we’re going through a really good period in Formula 1 at the moment and we’d quite like to keep it this way.”

Alpine sit P8 in the current F1 2024 Constructors’ Championship standings with 11 points on the board.

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