Renault employees are demanding face-to-face talks with Luca De Meo after so far being shunned by the Group CEO following his decision to end the power unit programme at Viry-Châtillon.
Just over 100 of the 334-strong workforce from the factory on the outskirts of Paris travelled overnight by bus and bought their own tickets to grandstands at Monza to launch their protest on practice day of the Italian Grand Prix. Remaining staff at the PU plant are on strike.
The group of technicians, engineers and mechanics are being led by Clément Gamberoni, Viry's figurehead of the Comité Social et Éconimique, the body that represents staff within a company in France.
Gamberoni has worked with Renault for the last 13 years. In his current role he leads a team responsible for the design of several components, such as the cylinder head, spark plugs, turbocharger, and exhaust.
As Gamberoni stated in conversation with RacingNews365 on the outskirts of the Parabolica ahead of FP1, the simple aim at present is for "our voices to be heard" and to ensure the Alpine team continues to use Renault engines.
"If you want Viry to live, you have to make F1 at Viry," he said. "Viry has a real value because of F1. F1 is the spine of Viry-Chatillon.
"We can work on everything. We are not against anything. 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."
Gamberoni confirmed the staff were informed of the planned F1 closure at the end of July after rumours had surfaced earlier in the month. It made for unpleastant
"When you say to someone who is a competitor who wants to race against others, it's best we do this, that you will not start the race in 2026, it's really hard for sure.
"All the people in Viry took that hard at the shutdown [F1's August break]. We all went on our family vacations to just calm down.
"Now we are preparing these 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.
"We think that the engine project for 2026 is a good one because we have data. We have 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."
Viewed by others:
All staff at Viry have so far been promised their contracts will be honoured albeit transferred to working on other projects. As for the contractors who assist the development of the power unit, they are due to find themselves out of work at the end of September.
At present, all conversation is being conducted through former Alpine team principal Bruno Famin who was switched from that role to oversee the Viry operation.
Beyond that, however, there are issues. "We can discuss this with him [Famin] but with the real stakeholders, the ones who are taking the decision, Luca De Meo, our boss, we don't have discussion," said Gamberoni.
"That's one of our requests. Our [main] request is to have the 2026 F1 engine from Viry running in the Alpine in 2026 - that is the endgame for us."
Gamberoni claims hundreds of millions have already been spent on a project now far advanced. He feels not too much more, in comparison to the vast sums already drained, would be required to get Alpine with Renault PUs on the grid in 2026.
"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, as a works team with Enstone and Viry working together," said Gamberoni.
"We have been working for one-and-a-half years, maybe two years, on the engine together to make the integration as best as possible because power is not the only thing, 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.
"It's now 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 awaiting a reply to 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.
"We think 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 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."
Most read
In this article
Join the conversation!