Explained: The inside story on the Alpine staff protest at the Italian Grand Prix

Protestors from Alpine’s Viry-Chatillon base gather at Monza

The news of the proposal has been greeted with dismay by the hundreds of employees at Viry-Chatillon, who have taken to social media in recent weeks to voice their discontent with the situation.

PlanetF1.com understands the next crunch date for proposals and counter-arguments to be tabled by both sides is on the 30th of September, with this date serving as a cut-off point for the current negotiations.

100 employees who feel frustrated by the actions taken by Renault Group CEO Luca de Meo have travelled, spending their own money to the Monza racetrack, via a long bus ride, to stage a peaceful protest against the proposed re-assignment of resources at Viry and the cessation of F1 activities in a factory that has manufactured engines for the sport for almost 40 years.

The employees are wearing white T-shirts with the message #ViryOnTrack, as well as displaying a banner to advocate for keeping the Renault power unit in F1.

Meeting with PlanetF1.com for a conversation about the situation was a spokesperson on behalf of the employees, who have formed a legally protected entity named the Comite Social et Economique to voice their concerns.

With no intentions of disrupting the activities of the Alpine F1 team, the CSO employees on the ground at Monza are made up of engine technicians, engineers, mechanics, and supporting staff.

Clement Gamberoni is a veteran of Alpine, having worked for Renault as a turbocharger manufacturer before joining the F1 team 10 years ago. His decision to join was one based purely on passion, as he says is similar to many who moved into the F1 manufacturing side of the Renault Group.

“A lot of people from Renault want to do Formula 1 because they are passionate about what they are doing as an automotive manufacturer,” he said.

“Inside Renault, we had the chance to have an engine manufacturer for Formula 1. That’s why I came into the Formula 1 business because I’ve always been dreaming about working in F1.”

It’s been a difficult two months for staff at Viry, with rumour and speculation giving way to confirmation from senior figures that they desire to pull the plug on the F1 engine.

“We had a meeting with the top management saying that there is an ongoing project to stop the F1 engine at Viry, from 2026. So we had that at the end of July,” Gamberoni explained.

“When you are saying to someone who is a competitor who wants to race against others and want to do it, it’s best to do that, and you are told that you will not race, you will not start the race in 2026, it’s really hard for sure.

“So all the people in Viry took that hard at the shutdown. We all went on our family vacation to just calm down, and now we are preparing actions because we have the feeling that we are not heard enough as Alpine and Viry employees, and we are not heard enough by normal staff management.”

Speculation from Viry staff has suggested the engines that have already made it to the test bench ahead of the revolutionary F1 2026 engine rules changes are showing signs of hitting and exceeding their benchmarks, and Gamberoni confirmed the many hours of work, and money spent, has already produced strong results.

“We think that the engine project for 2026 is a good one because we have data,” he said.

“We have already the engine running on the dyno. We are not saying, ‘Okay, we will do better next year’, whatsoever.

“We think, really, that in 2026, the stars are aligned for us to be a major player in terms of engines with our team at Enstone on the chassis.”

While jobs appear to be assured at Viry going forward, with no signal from Renault that redundancies are planned as part of the transformation, Gamberoni admitted that the hand the CSO has is “not strong” as senior management has said there’s no intention to touch existing contracts.

“So the 334 hired people who are now in Viry will still hired with other projects because it’s a transformation,” he said.

“The way we are seeing it, as employees of Viry, is that the first thing we are speaking for is the 334 people who have contracts but we are not speaking about all the contractors who are with us to develop the F1 engine and who are working with us.

“It’s more than 200 people, at the end of the year, if the project is decided to stop the F1 engine on the 30th of September, they will not have a job anymore at the end of the year. So it’s important for them. But it’s not the only thing.

“If you want Viry to live, you have to make F1 at Viry, because Viry has a real value because of F1. With the means of the attractiveness, the buildings, the means that we have, it’s all done by F1. F1 is the spine of Viry-Chatillon.

Gamberoni believes that the F1 project can live on, directly alongside the work that the Renault Group has proposed for the facility.

“We are not against anything,” he said.

“We are with our top management if they want to have new projects for us, we are okay to go with those new projects, but we believe that F1 needs to be there to have all those competencies.

“It means also the challenge that F1 brings every day, to be at the top, and then we can work also on other projects and be at the top on this other project, but we think that only other projects at Viry, like we are, it’s not possible. So that’s why we are not fully confident in keeping all the jobs.”

As for how initial discussions have been going with Alpine, Gamberoni explained that direct contact with De Meo hasn’t been possible and former Alpine F1 team boss Bruno Famin has been the one meeting with the employees at Viry – as Famin had revealed over the Belgian Grand Prix weekend as he confirmed his future plans.

“There is an open dialogue with the direct management, with Bruno Famin, for example, because he is there every day at the factory. So we have access to him,” Gamberoni said.

“We can discuss this with him but, with the real stakeholders, the ones who are taking the decision, it’s Luca De Meo. It’s our boss, and we don’t have discussion with De Meo directly, as employees or as personnel. That’s one of our requests. Our request is to have the 2026 F1 engine from Viry running in the Alpine in 2026 – that is the endgame for us.

“There is so little chance, but we want to bring arguments to Luca, to make him maybe see things differently compared to having a non-risky engine, Mercedes or whatever, but to take more risk and to have maybe a better engine, better integrated with a works team with Enstone and Viry working together.

“We have been working one-and-a-half years, maybe two years, on the engine together to make the integration the best as possible. because power is not the only thing, but also integration.

“So where you are putting the battery, the electric motor and so on, it’s very important to have a good package, and that’s something that you cannot have if you’re a customer from an engine manufacturer.”

Employees from Viry Chatillon are in the grandstands protesting Alpine’s decision to transform its #F1 engine project into manufacturing for the wider Renault Group. #ItalianGP pic.twitter.com/jueVqKlRAg

— Thomas Maher (@thomasmaheronf1) August 30, 2024

With almost 40 years of history behind Viry, does Gamberoni believe the proposal is somewhat short-sighted? After all, just because the Alpine F1 team is currently struggling for form with its engine not quite on standard with offerings from the likes of Honda and Mercedes doesn’t mean Viry can’t produce a world-class engine again from 2026.

“We cannot answer that,” he said.

“The thing is, for sure, it’s a big decision. If you take that kind of decision for Viry, it’s a one-way decision. You cannot go back, or you need 10 years to go back.

“You can see where we are now. 10 years ago, we are not where we are now because we did not have all the stuff that we have now – the competencies, the buildings that we have, the test beds and so on.

“You see the money that has been spent by our competitors – Red Bull and Audi – one billion. We have spent that already before, over 10 years, for sure, because every day we are doing Formula 1, and we are doing engines. And if you don’t use that, then it is a big waste.”

Aside from the action being taken at Monza, Gamberoni said the support is strong for it, but it is not a facility-wide strike as engine operatives working at Monza continue to work. The intention hasn’t been to disrupt the trackside operations, with respectful but determined messaging being the aim.

“They are supporting us for sure but they are not on strike because we want the car to run, the drivers to show what they can do, the best as they can,” he said.

“We are on strike at Viry-Chatillon, and we have the mayor there to support us, and we have some support also from politicians.

“Today is the start of our movement, and we want to be heard. We want to have a discussion and be sure that we will try to defend our point of view as passionately as we can.

“We are passionate about what we are doing every day, and we will defend it with passion so we don’t know what we will plan next, but we want our voice to be heard. We want a solution for Viry.”

Asked whether action could escalate, to the point of a theoretical engine supply or operations disruption for the F1 team, Gamberoni said it’s not the intention at this point.

“I cannot answer that,” he said.

“What I can answer is that we are professional. We are very proud of having the car running and the drivers running and fighting, maybe not for first place, but fighting still to be in Formula 1 every day, every weekend, and we want to do our job as best as we can.

“It’s in our management’s hands to answer to us, to hear what we have to say to them. Now we are putting the ball in their court and we are seeing how they will reply, and we will see what we do next.

“We want to bring new arguments to our top management. We don’t want to be against them. We want to be with them to find solutions.

“We have been told it’s a financial decision but we want to show that maybe there is a better financial decision than going with the customer engine.

“But we think that it’s more in terms of competitiveness. It’s better to have a works team with an engine done for the chassis, with a very close collaboration between the UK and France, between Enstone and Viry.

“We think this argument is worth spending the one hundred million more to do the engine.”

The Alpine F1 team acknowledged the protest in a short statement published on Thursday evening.

“We are aware of certain actions planned this weekend by the staff of Viry,” the statement read.”

“According to their communication, we understand that these will be peaceful demonstrations that will not impact the team’s operations.”