Alpine boss Otmar Szafnauer admits that Renault not supplying power units to other F1 teams allows them to operate freely.
Renault’s F1 team got officially re-branded as Alpine ahead of the 2021 season. It was rebranded as the latter to promote Renault’s sports-car division. In spite of the change in name, the French company continues to supply engines to them.
Renault were also supplying engines to the likes of Red Bull and McLaren up until a few years ago. But, as of now, they don’t have any customer teams in Formula 1. The Renault E-Tech RE-22 engine is used only by the Alpine F1 team.
Having customer teams has it’s own pros and cons, but Alpine’s team principal Szafnauer feels that they are better off not having one. According to the 57-year old, it allows them to operate freely, and not care about others’ wishes.
If a manufacturer team has a customer team using their PU, it allows them to get a wider perspective of it’s performance. However, it also means that they have to make certain compromises to fulfil their buyers’ needs.
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Zero considerations for other teams’ wishes, says Alpine boss Szafnauer
Szafnauer does not discredit the benefits of having customer teams within F1. However in the current state, he feels that they’re ‘marginally better off’, not having one.
“If two teams run your engine, just because if something goes wrong, sometimes it will go wrong somewhere else because of the installation and then you learn,” he said as quoted by GP fans.
“But we have one installation, there are benefits with that too. We have zero consideration for anybody else’s wishes and as much as the teams that supply three or four teams say ‘yeah, but we focus on our works team’, not so.”
“The others have their own wishes and they push hard. ‘I want this type of cooling, I want this, I want to attach to the chassis in this manner, have you considered this, blah blah blah’. Sometimes you have compromises and we don’t have to compromise,” he added.
Alpine are currently fourth in the Constructors’ Championship. Ahead of the French team are traditional heavy-weights Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes.
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