Alpine will be running with Mercedes power from F1 2026, but they won’t be “giving” Alpine the engine, as Mercedes boss Toto Wolff jokingly picked up on.

Renault has made the decision to end its Formula 1 involvement on the power unit side, meaning that from F1 2026, their Alpine team will transition to customer status, at which point the new chassis and engine regulations will come into effect.

Mercedes will ‘sell’ Alpine an engine

Additional reporting by Elizabeth Blackstock

And for that new era, Alpine has agreed a deal to become a Mercedes customer, using their engine and gearbox from F1 2026 and beyond. That will see Alpine join the Mercedes works team, McLaren, Aston Martin and Williams in using the Mercedes engine.

Alpine boss Oliver Oakes was joined by Mercedes counterpart Toto Wolff and Fred Vasseur – team principal of the Ferrari team which will also be an F1 2026 engine supplier – in a press conference at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, where Oakes was asked whether Alpine considered only Mercedes or Ferrari as well to be their new supplier?

“Now I see why we’re all together in here,” Oakes responded to the media, including PlanetF1.com.

“Well, I have to say thanks to Toto first. He’s giving me an engine, isn’t he?”

At that point, Wolff interrupted with: “Pardon?”

Oakes soon realised that he had used the wrong word there.

“Oh, sell, sorry. Yeah, sell,” he clarified.

“We could renegotiate it, no?”

Unsurprisingly, Wolff had no interest in such an idea.

All you need to know about the F1 2026 regulations

???? F1 2026 tech analysed: The future of overtaking and biggest car advantage identified

???? Explained: The 2026 engine regulations set to seriously shake up Formula 1

McLaren in F1 2024 has put to rest the speculation over whether a customer team could truly compete with its works team supplier, as they lead the Constructors’ Championship with two rounds to go, their lead over Ferrari 24 points and Red Bull 53, while Mercedes sit P4.

And this factored into Alpine’s decision to go with Mercedes for the upcoming new F1 era.

“I think it’s quite obvious,” Oakes replied when asked why Mercedes? “I think, first, this era of regulations, they’ve been the benchmark.

“Also, it’s quite clear to see customer teams using that power unit are competitive at the front of the field. And I think also for us as a team, it’s an obvious chance for us to benchmark ourselves as well.”

When Formula 1 first introduced the V6 turbo-hybrid engines from 2014, Mercedes came flying out of the blocks with the best creation, making the question of whether they can repeat that for F1 2026 a popular topic for debate.

So, Wolff was asked for an update on where Mercedes are at with their 2026 engine, these new power units to feature a 50/50 split between electrical power and an internal combustion engine running on fully-sustainable biofuels.

“Certain expectations we’re meeting, that’s good,” said Wolff. “Others, we’re still pushing to achieve our targets.

“It’s not trivial. But then the question is, have you set your expectations in the right way? So the answer is, we don’t know where we are.”

Read next – Cadillac F1: Everything you need to know about the new 11th team