Renault has revealed the new look of its Formula 1 team, which from this year will compete under the name of its performance sub-brand Alpine.
The final shape and livery of its 2021 F1 car, the A521, will be revealed next month.Luca de Meo, who took over as Renault Group CEO last year, introduced the team at a press conference to announce the company’s overall strategic plan.
Renault returned to Formula 1 as a full constructor in 2016 and scored the first podium finishes since its comeback last season. Fernando Alonso, who won two world championships with the team in 2005 and 2006 has joined Esteban Ocon at the rebranded Alpine squad this year.
Earlier this week Renault announced the departure of F1 team managing director Cyril Abiteboul and appointment of Laurent Rossi as chief executive officer of the Alpine brand.
Rossi revealed the team’s interim look. “I’m very proud to show you for the first time an F1 car for this season,” he said. “Stay tuned, we’ll unveil the livery of the newly-minted A521 next month.”
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Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
14th January 2021, 8:48
That’s very boring and way less blue than I would have personally expected.
Bit of a bummer, to be frank.
James Brickles (@brickles)
14th January 2021, 8:54
I think it’s an interim livery so it’ll be different when the season starts.
Qeki (@qeki)
14th January 2021, 8:57
However the final shape and livery of its 2021 F1 car, the A521, will be revealed next month.
MrBoerns (@mrboerns)
14th January 2021, 8:59
Oh come on, doing launch events for interim liveries now, too? that better be final.
btw i hate it.
the classic Alpine black.
ColdFly (@)
14th January 2021, 10:15
It’s not a launch event, but merely a teaser.
@mrboerns
Jimmi Cynic (@jimmi-cynic)
14th January 2021, 10:20
It’s a teaser event! Or is that a teaser launch? What time is lunch?
ColdFly (@)
14th January 2021, 10:41
Immediately after the magician show.
More specifically, directly after the disappearing team principal act.
Jeanrien (@jeanrien)
14th January 2021, 11:44
Part of re-branding exercise, they want to be seen as Alpine and provide pictures to the press to illustrate articles instead of the last season Renault pictures. It makes sense from commercial point of view while not revealing final livery just now when F1 coverage is at its lowest.
Bit underwhelming for hard core fans that continue reading F1 articles during winter break but we will go over that when we (hopefully) see an aggressive blue car rolling out.
Luke S (@joeypropane)
14th January 2021, 8:56
I’m still confused by Renault’s decision with this – surely the whole point of investing hundreds of millions of euro’s into Formula 1 is to get some brand awareness/advertising for the manufactures road cars? And with Renault’s achievements all coming with a Renault-branded car and with Fernando behind the wheel, seems odd to ditch all that association and history. How many people are really going to know Alpine are a subsidiary of Renault??
Unless they are being REALLY forward thinking and removing their main branding from anything related to fossil fuels? But they withdrew from Formula E, too??
Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
14th January 2021, 9:36
They want to push the Alpine brand, thats is a fairly easy thing to understand no? Alpine have a quite brilliant car but no one is buying them, F1 gives global coverage almost all year and generally gives prestige to a brand. SO the point is people dont know Alpine but they will.
Noah (@nsfrocks)
14th January 2021, 12:35
It sucks that alpine won’t sell to the US. I can’t currently afford one but I’m not too far off and I think they’re great looking cars.
Darryn Smith (@darryn)
14th January 2021, 17:47
Americans will never buy French cars no matter how much they are pushed. The Renault Alliance is still in living memory.
ColdFly (@)
14th January 2021, 10:20
The car will still be powered by, and have advertising of, Renault.
Also expect some Renault models to have an ‘Alpine’ sporty version. A bit like AMG and Mercedes.
@joeypropane
Luke S (@joeypropane)
14th January 2021, 14:29
If they decided the re-brand the RS Megane into the Alpine Megane, i’d agree – but RenaultSport (RS) IS Renault’s AMG/M Division/N.
How many Alpine A110’s are they expecting to sell? Enough to warrant F1 involvement?? I can’t find any news of Alpine becoming it’s own brand and having a range of cars, like Cupra.
Green Flag (@greenflag)
14th January 2021, 15:09
They have already promised to build an SUV and several EVs.
Robert
14th January 2021, 13:44
I personally think Renaults involvement in F1 over the last few years has actually done more bad than good for the brand. They came in as a big manufacturer and promised results that never materialiserad. All they have done is show that Renault is no way near as good as Mercedes, hardly a spectacular selling point for their road cars. The new leadership has seen this and decided it’s better to continue the progress of the F1-project under their performance brand. That is a more natural fit anyway, having a sporty brand doing sporty stuff. And, they will still run with Renault-branded power units as I understand it, so that allows them to easily tune the size and visibility of the Renault logos and colors in the F1 operation. If things continue to go slower than they hope for, the can tune down the Renault colors, but if they start to win they can turn up the yellow and even rebrand the team as Renault again.
At this point in time I think every single one of the actual potential customers of an Alpine road car knows it is a Renault associated brand. But that is probably why Renault wants to push the advertising of Alpine, to spread the awareness to a wider public – specifically one that is interested in performance cars.
Chris (@chrisgalaz)
14th January 2021, 19:33
well since mercedes use engines from renault in their basic cars… i don’t think they care that much…
Michel S. (@hircus)
15th January 2021, 5:36
They already did this in Formula E – the team is now branded Nissan rather than Renault.
H
14th January 2021, 8:58
If they just make the top of the nose blue, as it was with yellow on last years car, this wound look really good imo.
Sviat
14th January 2021, 8:59
Looks boring to me. I expected that they’ll use bright blue like for Renault Alpine a110. But this looks like Sauber or an old Williams. No one will notice this car.
zomtec (@zomtec)
14th January 2021, 9:06
Comparing that livery to this livery (link below) I don’t see the point presenting it to the public at all.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/2020_Formula_One_tests_Barcelona%2C_Renault_R.S.20%2C_Ricciardo.jpg
What’s the new here?
Ben (@b3ndy)
14th January 2021, 9:13
Press coverage
Only Facts!
14th January 2021, 10:05
Well, it looks more like a agreed market launch for all small sponsors. They are the most visible ones. Mapfre, Castrol, DuPont, etc.
I see little Renault there, much as we don’t see Ferrari powered standing out in Haas or Alfa (no reason to be proud of that anyway in 2020…).
Alpine shows up in the prime spots, front and rear wing, but that logo is just a word in a boring font. My opinion, of course. I believe Aston will do a much better job of rebranding than that.
Dave
14th January 2021, 9:19
Looks like a livery by a team that just started off from the fresh.
Jotty
14th January 2021, 9:49
Zero creativity.
Sonny Crockett (@sonnycrockett)
14th January 2021, 10:01
This is a joke, right?
Alpine are famous for their glorious metallic blue road cars.
Fernando Alonso is from Asturias which has a bright blue flag (McLaren used the colour in Alonso-related teamwear).
So they’ve gone for black with some dodgy decals at the rear. Bizarre!
Mashiat (@mashiat)
14th January 2021, 17:52
@sonnycrockett Just a testing livery, not the real one.
Steve W (@westcoastboogaloo)
14th January 2021, 10:14
Pretty underwhelming isn’t it?
Pironi the Provocateur (@pironitheprovocateur)
14th January 2021, 10:25
It resembles the Sauber’s C32 from 2013, but I hope the actual livery will be far more creative. I was hoping for a car in French racing blue a bit, with nice red and white accents, and it seems it will be far darker.
Michael A.
14th January 2021, 10:48
So . . . Black Lives Matter!
My first reaction.
Jere (@jerejj)
14th January 2021, 10:57
The Genii text won’t ever go away from Enstone’s F1 cars, LOL. I was expecting predominantly blue, but maybe once the season starts, considering the one here is interim anyway.
Retired (@jeff1s)
14th January 2021, 10:58
Uninspiring.
I guess they didn’t unlock further liveries at this point of the game.
The Edge (@the-edge)
14th January 2021, 11:06
I guess the reason for this livery launch is to give the media pictures to use when writing about Alpine
That and to move the conversation away from Cyril
Wellbalanced (@alloythere)
14th January 2021, 11:09
It looks like they are continuing the Enstone black winter testing livery, whilst giving us a taste of the tricolor blue-red-white colour-scheme to come.
I hope.
Rodney
14th January 2021, 11:18
The black colour is a tribute to the A500 F1 prototype from 1975.
machinesteve
14th January 2021, 11:21
I would be amazed if the car isn’t ‘Bleu de France’ when it is finally launched.
topo (@vieste)
14th January 2021, 11:22
The quintessence of banality.
SadF1fan
14th January 2021, 11:26
I assume it is to try and get a reaction to see the popularity of it.
It’s uninspired and boring. Very unlike renaults first liveries, where they had this smart and playful way of approaching the two tone.
Yellow from the front, black from the sides.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
14th January 2021, 11:27
I was disappointed by how Renault seemed to peel off a little bit more of their yellow with every passing season. This looks like a continuation of that. Hopefully the final version is a lot more colourful.
Dani B. Molina (@esmiz)
15th January 2021, 7:55
I hope that the final car is exactly like this, but with the blue stripe extended covering all the car. A complete car with that shade of blue can be beautiful and get Ligier and Prost vibes…
Witan
14th January 2021, 11:31
Are we going to get a rash of ‘woke’ black cars this coming season? This one will not be easy to distinguish from the Mercedes if they stay with black until there is a clear side view for the patriotic colours on the Alpine to be clearly seen.
if Haas go back to black and the Bulls keep their dark blue colour we will need dayglo numbers on the nose and side to be sure who is who in anything but bright sunlight.
Ivan
14th January 2021, 11:49
I like black cars, but I believe if they stick with this rather plain livery, it’s because they already have commitments to sponsors in regards to where their logos will be positioned. If they wanted to introduce multiple colours across the livery, they would have to cut through a number of these logos, which is impossible from the design perspective. So they chose sponsorships over good looks.
cduk_mugello (@cduk_mugello)
14th January 2021, 11:56
Ahhh just what the grid needed. Another mainly monochrome car….
If they don’t go with a mainly metallic blue it will be a massive missed opportunity. Stand out from the crowd!
Shimks (@shimks)
14th January 2021, 12:06
Shame about the boring black. I was hoping for classic colour blue:
http://s3.amazonaws.com/gt7sp-prod/livery/61/91/73/4620724079387739161_23.jpg
Robbie (@robbie)
14th January 2021, 15:44
@shimks Yeah those colours would be great.
STEVENHOLMES
14th January 2021, 13:36
This car as is, will be striking in the mid afternoon sun. Lot of nay sayers about having another black lives matters color smattering.
I was very excited to see the multi color angular livery. This looks like it means business. High marks on the look.
t1redmonkey (@t1redmonkey)
14th January 2021, 14:01
As a couple of others have said, don’t read too much into this livery since last year’s Renault was black in pre-season as well. Not to say it definitely won’t be black but I’m seeing it as just a placeholder for now, and a way to get some easy press coverage for the team.
Robert
14th January 2021, 14:10
Being the first livery reveal of the year, and only a winter testing / interim one anyway, it doesn’t really reveal much. Looks like they are intending to completely ditch the yellow, though, which is sad I think. It leaves a base color unused across the grid.
Everyone can’t use black or bare carbon, a trend that keeps going it seems. It does give a tiny performance advantage because you can use a thinner layer of paint, or none at all, on top of the dark carbon base. That saves a few kilos to be put elsewhere on the car. But if every team turns up in a predominantly black livery F1 will probably, perhaps rightly so, introduce rules that something like 90% of the visible surfaces of the car must be painted in team colors. No different than football teams having to use team colors distinctly different from the team they are playing against.
If you are in F1 you have to be aware of the field in which you will be fighting. Having a car livery that looks flashy or cool in a studio shoot is, for me at least, only fractionally as important as being easily recognizable on the track in a race among other cars. The key to that is to have a striking main color, visible from all angles, and a visually matching accent color that gives you a truly unique color combination among all other teams. Alpine should go for their intense blue, with yellow accents. It would stand out from the crowd.
Leroy (@g-funk)
14th January 2021, 15:08
I hope they didn’t spend too much time on that livery. Even for a testing livery it is bland.
Sam Crawford
14th January 2021, 15:29
The final livery will be metallic alpine blue with the tricolour at the back as this car is, and a small amount of red and white on the nose. However the endplates may well stay black.
This is not the final livery by any means
Saul
14th January 2021, 15:51
Colour means everything! People follow teams because of colour and branding.
For some reason modern F1 teams have usually been far too reserved.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
14th January 2021, 18:43
Looks like someone was bored. As stated not the actual livery.
Coefficient
14th January 2021, 19:30
I’m underwhelmed.
OOliver
14th January 2021, 22:48
If they are fighting for wins trust me the colors would look great.
Dean Franklin
15th January 2021, 4:49
Boring like the 2020 Merc. Hopefully Merc go back to silver in 2021!
Mayrton
15th January 2021, 8:54
Renault as always not living up to expectations. What a firework to add Alonso to that equation.
Antybuc
19th January 2021, 13:21
Boring. Renault yellow livery looks so much better.
Den
14th March 2021, 3:48
Dunno Alfa tauri looks canny decent Shane it won’t match in performance