The new Renault F1 engine is “closer to the competition,” according to Laurent Rossi
The CEO of Alpine assures that the 2023 engine designed by Alpine F1 (formerly Renault Sport) is only one-tenth as powerful as the others in terms of pure performance.
If the Renault engine did have a weakness in recent seasons, especially in 2022, it was undoubtedly reliability. For their new year, the engineers based in Viry-Châtillon worked hard to improve this aspect that was lacking. A whole new structure of the powertrain unit has been implemented, now named Renault e-tech 2023.
Thus, efforts focused on the water pump, which often caused problems last year. The work also involved integrating the engine into the car, which cost Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso precious time last season.
According to Laurent Rossi, the CEO of Alpine, most of the issues have been resolved and the power unit provided by the diamond brand is much more efficient. « The new [engine] is definitely much closer to the competition. I think we are approximately one-tenth of the best, he assured in the Beyond the Grid podcast.
So, that’s pretty good because let’s remember that we had a second to catch up with Red Bull [when Renault powered the Milton Keynes team] or something like that.
It is still too early to judge the performance of the engine at the beginning of the 2023 season. However, during the Bahrain Grand Prix, Pierre Gasly started last but managed to score two points. On the other hand, Esteban Ocon received numerous penalties, which prevented him from being among the contenders to enter the top 10.
