The Alpine F1 Team is currently competing at each race weekend with the odds slightly stacked against them. The Renault power unit used by the French factory team is believed to be 30 horsepower behind their rivals. Under normal circumstances, Alpine would be told simply to improve on their own, but there’s currently a freeze on engine development. The FIA, the sport’s governing body, wants to allow Alpine to catch up.
The development freeze was put in place after the 2021 season when Honda withdrew from Formula 1. Red Bull Racing and Scuderia AlphaTauri, the teams powered by Honda, were left without means of having their power units improved. Red Bull established its own in-house engine arm to maintain its Honda engines and develop an engine for the next rules cycle. The FIA and F1’s teams agreed to the freeze until new power unit regulations come into effect for the 2026 season.
However, power unit performance hasn’t been truly locked in place. Upgrades can still be made solely for reliability purposes, but those same updates might also unlock increased performance. Since the FIA put the current freeze in place, Alpine has fallen behind. The same loophole was exploited during the 2007 F1 engine freeze which also saw the FIA intervene.
Motorsport.com reports that the FIA will hold talks about a potential power unit equalization this weekend at the Belgian Grand Prix. The governing body will have to convince the other teams that Alpine is at an irreparable disadvantage. Red Bull is already open to the idea of letting Alpine improve. Red Bull team principal Christian Horner told the website:
“I think that would be fascinating for everybody to see, and I think that if there is a deficit under homologation, then it’s something that we should be sensible about - otherwise, you’re locked in for two years. I wouldn’t be averse to a sensible discussion.”
It would be difficult for any team to say that Alpine must compete at a disadvantage for the next two years because the team played by the rules and didn’t abuse a loophole.