Alpine interim 2021 F1 livery

Alpine and Lotus to collaborate on motorsport projects

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In the round-up: Lotus and Renault Group will work on joint projects through the Alpine brand, which will compete in F1 this year, including an electric sports car.

Alpine and Lotus in motorsport tie-up

Romain Grosjean, Lotus, Interlagos, 2012
Renault’s previous F1 team rebranded as Lotus
As part of developing the Alpine brand – now featured on its factory Formula 1 team – the Renault Group is looking at collaborating with Lotus on engineering projects including a viability study into a joint electric sports car venture.

The two will examine how to offer their services drawing on the group’s activities and expertise in Formula 1, Formula E and endurance racing.

“The signing of this [memorandum of understanding] with Lotus shows the lean and smart approach we’re implementing as part of the new Alpine brand strategy,” said Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi. “Both brands have an amazing legacy and we are most excited to start this work together, from engineering tailored solutions to developing a next-generation EV sports car.

“This collaboration along with our transformation mark the beginning of a new era in which we’ll be taking the Alpine name and line-up to the future. We’re putting F1 at the heart of our business, leveraging our in-house expertise and best-in-class partners such as Lotus to inject our cars with leading-edge performance, technology and motorisation”

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Comment of the day

Robert is concerned by the growing trend towards bare carbon liveries:

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 colour 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 colours. No different than football teams having to use team colours 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 recognisable on the track in a race among other cars. The key to that is to have a striking main colour, visible from all angles, and a visually matching accent colour that gives you a truly unique colour combination among all other teams. Alpine should go for their intense blue, with yellow accents. It would stand out from the crowd.
Robert

From the forum

Toyota GR010 hybrid WEC Hypercar, 2021
Toyota GR010 hybrid WEC Hypercar, 2021

Toyota have revealed the first pictures of the car they will contest the 2021 World Endurance Championship with.

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On this day in F1

Juan Pablo Montoya, Ralf Schumacher, Williams, Valencia, 2001
Juan Pablo Montoya, Ralf Schumacher, Williams, Valencia, 2001
  • 20 years ago today F1 teams tested at Jerez, including new Williams signing Juan Pablo Montoya in the team’s 2000 car

Author information

Hazel Southwell
Hazel is a motorsport and automotive journalist with a particular interest in hybrid systems, electrification, batteries and new fuel technologies....

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37 comments on “Alpine and Lotus to collaborate on motorsport projects”

  1. Toyota’s Hypercar looks exactly like their old LMP1. As ever good job ACO and fia…

    1. TBH,the picture in the roundup is the worst angle they could choose. The rear is obviously different and the sides are much more sculpted. Sportscar365 has a bit of a comparison piece about them up as well.

    2. Little to no difference. At all.

    3. I agree there with @peartree. And yeah, I did see it from the side, and from three quarters front/top too @uneedafinn2win.

      Sure, they are a bit different, but not a remarkable difference at all.

      1. @bascb I can see that you’ve had some challenging your view further down in this thread, but that’s a separate discussion.

        Ultimately, the fact that you think it looks like a prototype racing car is not at all surprising, as that is how the “Hypercar” rules effectively ended up – in reality, the rules have effectively been written so that manufacturers produce a full blown prototype racing car that happens to share some visual similarities with road cars.

        In the case of Peugeot, even though they are competing in the “Hypercar” class, they’ve already confirmed that there won’t be any road going homologation specials – their car is purely designed as a prototype racing car. On a technical basis, the “Hypercar” rules are closer to being more of a modified version of the older LMP1 regulations.

        It’s a bit like the way that the Daytona Prototype cars are technically just modified LMP2 cars – although, since LMP2 cars use a survival chassis that is built to the same specifications as LMP1 cars, even the LMDh cars are not that far removed from just being LMP1 cars with fancy body kits.

    4. So here’s what Toyota will get in return for their massive investment in building a Le Mans Hypercar…

      Today – everyone looks at it and can’t tell the difference from the old LMP1 prototype.

      Summer 2021 – BoP rules mean that a grandfathered privateer LMP1 wins Le Mans.

      2022 – Cheaper LMDh prototypes are allowed to compete. BoP rules mean that a new privateer LMDh car wins Le Mans.

      2023-2028 – Porsche and Audi have added multiple Le Mans titles after entering with their cheap LMDh cars. Toyota and Peugeot have added none.

      2029 – the Germans get bored and decide to compete in Formula Hydrogen instead. Peugeot decide to field a 208 in a new class the ACO have created for small French hatchbacks. Toyota are the only factory entrants in the Hypercar class. They finally manage to win, just half a lap ahead of the 208.

      1. Truly living in the best timeline.
        And don’t forget we are moving in the same direction in F1.

  2. Alpine dropping yellow was expected. The brand’s colour is blue. As such, I really doubt this interim livery will be carried over to the real one. It’s also going to be mostly blue, I’m 100% sure.

    I have no idea why people got so mad with an interim livery… The response was very bad, but it’s just for testing! I couldn’t care less about what they run in testing, tbh!

    1. Curious, isn’t it @fer-no65. In some years people were hoping for all sorts of interim liveries. And yeah, this one IS a bit bland, but then if it serves to tease people to be aware of Alpine at all, why not.

      And the feedback they get is what can influence their final design, which I hope will have more blue on it.

  3. Todd (@braketurnaccelerate)
    15th January 2021, 6:50

    “The Welling MSP Racing Sponsorship Consortium delivers access to new ‘pooled’ sponsorship funding for F1 teams and access to F1 team partnerships for smaller budget sponsors.”

    Sounds like a great Ponzi scheme.

    1. A bit – yeah, we took ten grand last season, but you know, now you get “access to F1” in the deal, so make that 20 k for the same sticker @braketurnaccelerate, right.

  4. More bhp inflation from Berger. He never raced a 1500 bhp F1 car. In 10 years this will be up to 2000 bhp.

    1. I cant believe he even said it. The Dyno’s couldn’t measure that high and in any case those engines that ‘had ‘1500bhp’ were qually engines. Nobody raced with 1500bhp but they sure sounded like they did. Its kind of the opposite now

      1. How about the BMW powered Brabham BT52?? Not 1,500HP, but at 1,400HP it became the most powerful engine ever raced in F1 back then. Remember the Four banger was the first Turbo powered F1 engine to win the Championship.
        Piquet said the Turbo Lag was like the rush of being blindfolded and walking off the edge of a ten story building. The massive powerband was burdened by turbo lag and then the Massive rush of power. Few mastered it but Nelson Piquet was first to drive this 1,400 machine to rise above all others that season long ago.

        1. Thing is though Holmzini, as @tonymansell mentions, that was an estimate since they couldn’t reliably measure it. And it was never really reliably at a certain level anyways, and could be quite different between different blocks too.

        2. HOLMZINI, back in 1983, the BT52 did not produce anything like 1,5000bhp – in the latter part of 1983, the M12 engine was rated at about 800bhp in qualifying trim and a maximum of 740bhp in race trim. The BMW engines weren’t even the most powerful engines of the grid – Renault were generally accredited with that accolade in 1983, but had problems with greater unreliability.

          With the information we have about the M12 engine from those who have restored those engines, 1,500bhp is almost certainly physically impossible – the stresses in most of the components would exceed the yield stress of the materials, such that the engine would fail before it could reach that power output.

          To put it bluntly, Rosche made up quite a lot of stories in the 1990s about the BMW M12 – for example, ex-BASF staff (BASF actually made the fuel, but used the “Wintershall” brand for marketing) have cast considerable doubt on Rosche’s claims about the fuel they used at the time. It’s notable that most of those stories only ever appeared in the English speaking world too – most of Rosche’s claims are unknown in Germany.

          There is a lot of retrospective boasting about the power of the engines from both the designers and the drivers, both of whom are prone to inflating their claims over time given that it casts them in a better light. There are also a lot of fans who repeat those claims without any evidence either – it’s a case of “well, my mate told me they produced that much power”.

          There is even a rather sarcastic epithet about the turbo engines amongst older fans – the joke is that those turbo engines are clearly special, because even though they stopped developing them in 1988, they somehow keep becoming more powerful every year that passes.

          As Darryn Smith notes, there have even been those betting on when we would hear somebody inflate the power claims to 1,600bhp, or even up to 2,000bhp (Mansell duly obliged by making claims of 1,600bhp engines last year), such is the notoriety for overinflating the power claims.

          When you look at the evidence behind it, most of the claims are just utter nonsense – it’s a case of those bragging about what they achieved gradually inflating their claims year by year, until they both believe their own lies and have inflated the claims beyond any rational basis.

          1. All my knowledge on the matter was written and published in Grand Prix Illustrated magazine.
            Every bit of data published at that was one of the “bibles” about the sport that was available in the US back in the eighties. I believed the impressive data then as I believe what is written on Racefans today.
            But to state the difference in HP Ratings as you did only 800hp as opposed to the 1,500hp as printed in GPIs article. I read both Nelson Piquets and Gordon Murray’s words about the amazing engine they were bringing to Grand Prix. Their description of what actually was happening lends its self to them both stating the data they grew from the initial running of the the mighty BMW 4banger.
            Your declaration of it being only 800hp certainly sounds truth shaping and from what I know you are being less than truthful about the facts. I still have my source of data in my collection of the old GPI magazine.
            But I will stand on what I know instead of your version. Piquets Brabham was attempting qualifying in the very same 1,400hp race after race.
            Please document your sources to racefans with the printed info that reflects the hard to even believe 800hp and not the 1,400 I saw witnessed race and so that makes me think you are wrong and that I am truthful with the story as I understand it.
            The Cosworth Powrr plants were good for 500 plus hp. At first Renault and then Ferraris attempts to acquire more power then was more in that 600 to 700 hp. Roughly in that band. But to see the four banger produce double than that then was stunning.
            Also 1400hp then is much different beast as turbo lag then actually kept them closer than thought when compared to aspirated mills.
            Then numbers printed at that time were a stunner to Formula One and that history is the foundation of the very problem we have today in Formula one. Computer controlling the machines. Great path to creating what is raced now.
            That’s my response

      2. What @tonymansell said. Surely Berger knows that today’s engines have to last for several races, not a single qualy session, and run on less exotic fuel. Is he also bemoaning the lack of turbo lag?

        On the other hand, how much did F1 cars weigh in the eighties?

        1. @jimg direct comparisons are complicated by the fact that the minimum weight regulations were different in the 1980s – the regulations back then specified a minimum weight for the car only, whereas today the minimum weight is a combination of car and driver.

          It’s also not entirely clear if the quoted weights from cars in that era were the same either, with some teams possibly quoting a dry weight – i.e. without coolants or other vital fluids – whereas those fluids are included in the current minimum weight.

          There have been a few examples of weight checks after races in the 1980s where the actual weight of the cars, as measured in scruitineering, was higher than the official weight, as well as highlighting that team mates might have cars that varied in weight by a few kilos.

        2. @jimg And further to that, whatever hp they do currently have, which is obviously not 1500, and in spite of the hefty weight of today’s cars, lap time records have been getting broken at tracks. It is obviously not just about hp, and as well I would think true 1500 would drink gobs of fuel and that is not F1’s direction. They do what they do these days with 2/3 the fuel of pre-2014.

    2. To be fair to the current gen of engines, the 2019 Ferrari engine using the Berger equations likely hit 1500 bhp in qualie mode.

  5. Very surprising collaboration with Lotus. You’d have thought they were competitors. Electric Lotus-Alpine cars? Is that the idea?

  6. Renault/Alpine/Lotus/Genii …I’m lost in translation.

  7. Regarding COTD:
    – Mercedes is silver
    – Red Bull is dark blue
    – Let’s say Alpine is black (but will probably switch the a lighter blue)
    – McLaren is orange
    – Aston Martin is green
    – Alpha Tauri is white and black
    – Ferrari is red
    – Alfa Romeo is white and red
    – Williams is white
    That is one of the most colorful and easily recognizable field of cars in a long long time

    1. Well, I think Mercedes did say that they are planning to keep their black with silver livery for next season too @paeschli. Otherwise wholly agree that there really is not much to grip about with regards to colours on the grid.

      We have 3 cars that at a distance might not be too far apart, but still Williams is white with light Blues, the Alpha Tauri is white with dark blues (almost black) and the Alfa is white with distinct red.
      Also the Haas is light grey with red and black thrown in (not sure if new colours now with Mazepin’s father throwing somethign on there?) which could be said to be somewhat similar to Alfa Romeo in the wrong light.

      But still, they ARE different. And the rest of the grid has quite vibrant colouring at Ferrari, Aston, McLaren, Red Bull, and Mercedes distinct black/silver look. I guess it would be better if there was a decent chunk of blue (and red) on the back of the Alpine, but a black with Red/white and blue accents is still clearly a different livery from anyone else.

      In the past we’ve had grids where half the field looked far too similar and the rest looked drab. Even Ferrari has a nicer colour of red than they used to have a few years back.

    2. I see what you are saying, they all have their designated team colors and it is a fairly wide range of them. My point was that they don’t use them enough. ALL teams have about half the car in black or bare carbon and the trend is to use more and more black and less and less of the actual team color. Renault, who where the only ones to use yellow on the grid, only used it on a small part of their car last year. Unless you saw it head on from the front it was a black car. Would it not have been nicer to see it yellow from all angles?

  8. I find the comments about the Toyota GR010 looking like any single version of the TS050, which dominated an almost empty field for years now re-emerges with a much changed challenger

    But here’s my problem. Most of the comments claim the car looks identical as the last years car…. so for some reason the impression of the new car as written by many above is insulting to every Fan of TRD.

    Y’all claim the car is “Identical” and none of you even looked. You just all missed the elegance of this unbelievable Aero package. The sculpting of the radiators area and its rear fender is dramatically new. Building a new endurance racer for this series is expensive and Then there is the challenge of racing at Lemans. The GR010 may eat everything alive on that track.

    Look again friends open your eyes and if it’s still identical to you then your not much of a WEC follower.

    1. It looks like an LMP1 car, very unlike a Hypercar.

      Will they make a road version?

    2. Holmzini. I think you read far too much detail into this if you want to tell the world the difference between several seasons of le mans cars from the last 5-6 years.

      As @jureo rightly mentions it retains the distinct form of the front arches, bubble cockpit and sharkfin the cars had. To those not much into endurance racing, there is no clear visual change as was hyped with the change to “Hypercars” supposedly looking closer to real cars once could buy (if we hit the jackpot) and drive on roads.

      1. Sorry man but let your eyes tell what is different.
        It’s is a SIGNIFICANTLY different racing machine from last years TS050.
        If you CAN NOT see the differences then keep your opinion to yourself.

        You happen to be 100% incorrect.

    3. People complaining about the Toyota looking the same as last year is quite comical when you couldn’t tell the different F1 cars apart if they had the same colour scheme.

  9. just look at that williams

    1. A beauty.

    2. Agreed. One of my favorite F1 cars. Shouldn’t that be 20 years ago, not 15 @hazelsouthwell?

      1. @dot_com good spot, think I was in denial about how old I am…

        1. Happens to me all the time. How can that possibly be 20 years ago!?

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