Formula 1 financial rules prompt move to customer team strategy – Motorsport Week

Outgoing Alpine team principal Bruno Famin has said that Formula 1 financial regulations forced the French marque to abandon engine production and become a customer team.

At the end of August, Famin will step down as Team Principal of the Alpine F1 Team to fully dedicate himself to a period of great change at the Viry-Chatillon powertrain plant.

Alpine plans to discontinue its own powertrains and pursues a technical partnership with Mercedes to become a Formula 1 customer.

Speaking of F1 Outside the net In the podcast, Famin explained that the primary reason for this change is the financial incentive of becoming a customer team rather than an OEM.

“The fact is, this business model, if you want to call it that, is a little weird,” he said.

“We know from the Concorde Agreement, the prize fund system that only the teams benefit from, and on the other hand the FIA ​​has financial regulations and sporting regulations that impose on the power unit manufacturer the obligation to sell, at a set price, power units to teams that want them.”

Formula 1 is currently under a development freeze on current power units, effective from 2021, however development work is already underway on new power units for the 2026 season, the costs of which are controlled and the budget is $130 million.

However, with the cost of purchasing a power unit from another manufacturer at around $20 million and the fact that Alpine lags behind its OEM rivals by “15 kilowatts”, Famin regretted that changing the way the team races in Formula 1 was not cost-effective.

“When you look at the (research and development) costs involved in developing a power unit versus buying one, the difference is huge,” he said.

“This huge difference is not compensated by any prize fund, because the entire prize fund goes to the team. Then we are not talking about results, we are talking about a huge difference in money.”

“There is no secret about it because we know it’s official and public.

“The cost ceiling, which is the amount of money that polyurethane producers can spend, the price at which polyurethane is supplied and the price that a polyurethane producer must pay to sell polyurethane, is also public information.

“That’s about 120 million euros in one hand and 17 million in the other.”

The money saved from the F1 business will be used to develop the Alpine road car brand. During Friday’s press conference ahead of the Belgian GP, ​​Famin told the media that “the Alpine brand is growing, it has a huge, huge development project that will see the introduction of seven new models with cutting-edge technology in the coming years.

“The project, which was presented earlier this week to a staff representative in Viry-Châtillon, aims to reallocate resources from one side to the other, one of which concerns the development of the Formula 1 power unit, which is produced in Viry, and then to allocate those resources and skills to the development of new technologies for the brand, for a new product for the brand.

“And one of the consequences of this project, if it is accepted, will be that the Alpine F1 Team will have to buy a power unit instead of developing its own.”