Here we are, kicking off another double-header, fully recovered from the weekend at Monza!! This means we can finally discuss the broader implications of the strike at Alpine's power unit facility. Take a closer look at Newey's decision to join Aston Martin and his new role as a shareholder, and, of course, dive into all the shenanigans the drivers got up to during their week off!
It's so weird to be a business in a performance based industry owned by the government. Any government. Governments are generally concerned with a lot of things, but performance is not one of them. I wonder if this specific stakeholder would care more about the Renault engine than any of the other F1 elements, because that's where most of the actually French jobs are.
It kind of reminds me of the NBA where David Stern said no to the Chris Paul trade, because while the trade served the interests of the basketball team trying to execute it, it did not serve the interests of the owners of that basketball team (the NBA themselves). Perhaps this can be the same thing, where axing the Renault engine would be great for Alpine, but not so great for those who own the Alpine F1 team, and therefore it'd end up not happening.
That’s a really interesting comparison! I find Alpine fascinating precisely because government ownership creates these unique challenges. The power unit saga perfectly illustrates this! While a well-performing team is in any owner’s interest, Renault’s approach to achieving this is inherently more complex than others’, as they need to consider both the macroeconomic and corporate perspective.
At the moment, it clearly doesn’t seem to be working, which raises the question: how will they fix it? Getting rid of the PU doesn’t look like the answer, but selling feels like giving up on this fascinating experiment! So what now?!
It's so weird to be a business in a performance based industry owned by the government. Any government. Governments are generally concerned with a lot of things, but performance is not one of them. I wonder if this specific stakeholder would care more about the Renault engine than any of the other F1 elements, because that's where most of the actually French jobs are.
It kind of reminds me of the NBA where David Stern said no to the Chris Paul trade, because while the trade served the interests of the basketball team trying to execute it, it did not serve the interests of the owners of that basketball team (the NBA themselves). Perhaps this can be the same thing, where axing the Renault engine would be great for Alpine, but not so great for those who own the Alpine F1 team, and therefore it'd end up not happening.
That’s a really interesting comparison! I find Alpine fascinating precisely because government ownership creates these unique challenges. The power unit saga perfectly illustrates this! While a well-performing team is in any owner’s interest, Renault’s approach to achieving this is inherently more complex than others’, as they need to consider both the macroeconomic and corporate perspective.
At the moment, it clearly doesn’t seem to be working, which raises the question: how will they fix it? Getting rid of the PU doesn’t look like the answer, but selling feels like giving up on this fascinating experiment! So what now?!