There is a lot of anticipation over the 2025 Formula 1 season now that pre-season testing has begun and teams are getting into the swing of things.
F1 teams will be spending the next three days testing and figuring out how to optimise their package as they put in laps around the Bahrain International Circuit.
All of the teams have effectively created evolutions of their 2024 cars, but there will be big performance gains to be made over the winter break.
There will be a lot of teams looking to improve their Constructors’ Championship places last year, however, there is one team whose motivation might be impacted by what has been going on in the background according to Sky Sports F1 analyst Ted Kravitz.
Ted Kravitz outlines one ‘Achilles heel’ facing Alpine in 2025
Alpine faced a difficult season in 2024 when they started with a car that was overweight due to not meeting the crash tests, which required some modifications to their front wing.
Their results improved later in the season but in the background, parent company Renault elected to cease operations of their power unit plant in Viry Chatillon in favour of offloading the costs and re-organising personnel.
Renault employees in Viry Chatillon staged a protest at the Italian GP, but the £1.2bn French team pressed ahead with it plans in a bid to cut costs. Kravitz believes the morale within the team will be low heading into 2026, knowing they will be scaled back.
“The engine is an issue still and you would’ve thought that the old French ‘bon amie’ will not be in particularly high supply given this is the last year with the Renault power units before Alpine go to Mercedes,” said Kravitz.
“How motivated will the engine power unit department be to improve the engine? Knowing they will be out to electric motors. So that might be the Achilles heel for Alpine.”
Alpine will switch to Mercedes power for 2026
Alpine will be making the switch to Mercedes power units for the 2026 season, which will be the first time since the 2015 season they have been a customer team.
The deal to use Mercedes power units was reportedly signed on the same weekend Renault employees protested at Monza.
Romain Grosjean labelled the situation at Viry Chatillon ‘sad’ given it was a rich part of French motorsport history, having achieved a lot of success in the V8-era with Red Bull.
The last time the team used a customer engine was under their Lotus guise, with Grosjean once explaining how Mercedes once gave them access to a secret mode to beat the Renault-powered Red Bull at the Belgian Grand Prix.
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