Alpine hopeful about new Renault engine: 'The old Mercedes concept'

Alpine will have a completely new engine under the bodywork this season. Last winter Renault worked hard to provide the French team with a new engine and they succeeded quite well, according to sporting director Alan Permane. To The Race Permane he explains how the engine came about.

"The engine got through the first week completely trouble-free," Permane explained. According to the top man at Alpine, the engine was only fully completed just before the deadline. As a result, there were still a few simple problems that needed to be resolved, but that didn't get in Alpine's way.

Mercedes concept adopted

Technical director at Alpine, Matt Harman, was able to talk a little more about the technical aspects of the new engine. According to Harman, they completely rebuilt the engine. "We've decided to change the architecture of that power unit extensively in all areas including the internal combustion engine, the ERS, the turbo and its positioning in the car."

According to The Race, Renault switched to Mercedes' revolutionary design in 2014, which left them with a big gap on the engine competition. So while the times did not suggest that yet, it does seem that Alpine could be one of the outsiders for victories next season.