Alpine-Mercedes? Toto Wolff grilled on replacing Renault engines for F1 2026

Pierre Gasly in action in practice at the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix

Toto Wolff has said that Alpine “need to take their decisions” amid rumours that Mercedes could replace Renault as the Enstone team’s engine supplier from the F1 2026 season.

Reports this week claimed Alpine‘s parent company Renault is considering ending its engine project in favour of a power unit supply deal for the new regulations set to be introduced in F1 2026.

Alpine to run Mercedes engines from F1 2026?

Additional reporting by Sam Cooper

The French manufacturer has struggled to master the demands of F1’s V6-hybrid era since 2014, with former team principal Otmar Szafnauer revealing last year that Renault are “significantly down” on power compared to fellow engine builders Mercedes, Ferrari and Honda.

Team Enstone have been associated with Renault almost throughout the team’s history, but ran customer Mercedes engines for the 2015 season while competing as Lotus.

With Mercedes widely tipped to ace the new rules, it has been speculated that Alpine – currently eighth in the Constructors’ standings having scored just five points across the first nine races of this season – could try to rekindle the relationship from F1 2026.

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Alpine announced on Friday that controversial former boss Flavio Briatore, who previously led the team to World Championship success with Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso, has returned to Enstone as an executive advisor as Renault look to get their project back on track.

Appearing in the team representatives’ press conference alongside Alpine team principal Bruno Famin, Wolff claimed Mercedes are not involved in talks about how Renault should proceed towards F1 2026.

He told media including PlanetF1.com: “I think, most of all, Bruno and Flavio and Luca [de Meo, Renault CEO] are in the process of assessing what that 2026 package looks like and there’s nothing we can see or involve ourselves in that.

“I’ve seen the rumours, I’ve seen the chats that are going on, but at this stage Alpine needs to take their decisions and we are on the outside of that.”

Alpine’s F1 project is split between two facilities, with the chassis constructed at the Enstone factory and the engine developed at Viry-Chatillon near Paris.

Asked if Renault’s F1 2026 engine plans are on track, Famin said: “I’m quite happy with what is being done in Viry.

“We are we are working well. We have quite high-level targets, I think.

“For the time being we are optimistic in our ability to reach that target and people have been very focused for a lot of months on this target and we’re all pushing to reach it.

“I am not optimistic, I’m just saying we’re on track for getting there. We know we are going to have some problems which are just normal with this kind of very complex project.

“On the rumours [of dropping the engine project], we just don’t comment on rumours.

“We owe a lot of respect for everybody in Viry working on that project and the worst thing would be to comment on the rumours.”

Asked specifically if Alpine would be open to a Mercedes engine supply from F1 2026, he said: “On our side, we are really focused in really developing the performance of the car and improving the team. That’s why I’m happy to welcome Flavio on board.

“We have a lot to do. Our car this year is not at the level we wanted. We have got the support now.

“David Sanchez as technical director has been doing a very good job in Enstone for a few weeks now and we hope to be able to improve our car by the end of the year to work on the 2025 car and to of course to look at the 2026 generation car and engine and we are really focused on that.

“When we have something to tell you we will say, but for the time being we are really focused on making the plan for gaining performance faster and better thanks to our recent report.”

Mercedes currently supply three customers – McLaren, Aston Martin and Williams – on the F1 2024 grid, with Renault lacking a customer team since their relationship with McLaren ended at the end of 2020.

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