Road Going EVs From Renault’s Alpine To Feature F1 Aero Tech

The aim is to not only improve performance, but also efficiency and range too.

Renault 5 EV Prototype at IAA 2021

Andrei Nedelea

By: Andrei Nedelea

Apr 6, 2022 at 12:11pm ET

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Alpine, the sporty arm of Renault (that has replaced RenaultSport) is going to draw from Formula 1 for all its upcoming EVs, according to a new report. The company is pulling out all the stops to ensure that its future Alpine models will please enthusiasts by being engaging to drive.

One of the main areas of focus is aerodynamics, according to Alpine’s F1 technical director, Matt Harman, who spoke to Autocar. He didn’t say which car they had already worked on (although the source does say he was referring to the hot version of the reborn and fully electric Renault 5 city car), but he did point out that

The A522 aerodynamics group at Enstone has just finished a particular project for Alpine road cars, and we’re about to embark on another.

We’re linking those two [groups of] people together, both in physical testing and in computational fluid dynamics. It’s a really nice collaboration, and it’s good for the aerodynamicists, giving them another angle to look at, freshening their minds. They really enjoy working on those projects, so we will keep them going. In fact, we will probably expand more of our engineering expertise into the road cars.

Gallery: Alpine Teaser Trio

Alpine Teaser Trio

The next vehicle believed to go in for aerodynamic fine tuning with Alpine’s F1 team is a sporty electric crossover that will be launched in 2025, expected to be called the Alpine GT X-Over. Based on the only teaser we have of the upcoming model, it will have a low-slung, coupe-like body with a fastback rear end and even though it will share much with an equivalent Renault model, it will be considerably more powerful.

An all-new and all-electric A110 sports car is the third prong of Alpine’s strategy and it too will go through the F1 wind tunnel before its design is signed off. The new A110 is being co-developed with Lotus. Autocar also quotes the CEO of Alpine, Larent Rossi, who said

It’s [about] when you can release electricity that you convert into instant torque; how much time can you do that around a track or along a road; how much of the battery charge you can recover; and how long you can make it last for range. All of this is the same. We transfer [learnings about] electricity from track to road and from road to track.

Gallery: Renault 5 EV Prototype at IAA 2021

Renault 5 EV Prototype at IAA 2021

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The first of these new and quite exciting Alpine-badged EVs is the hot version of the Renault 5 coming in 2024. Next will be the GT X-Over, expected to arrive one year later, followed by the A110 sports car whose debut year has not been announced yet.

In Formula 1, Alpine made its competition debut in 2021 as BWT Alpine F1 Team and it finished the season fifth in the Constructors’ Championship standings (below McLaren-Mercedes and above Honda) out of a total of ten teams. It doesn’t have a lot of competition experience, but it does have advanced aerodynamic knowledge and innovations that will surely be applied to the road cars.