Renault mulls revival of Renaultsport performance brand
The Renaultsport sub-brand could be revived, despite the Renault Group’s focus on Alpine for performance machinery, CEO Luca de Meo has said.
“Officially, the Renaultsport badge we put in the fridge, and everything sporty would be building on Alpine, but it doesn’t mean that sometimes this thing wouldn’t be revived,” he told Autocar at the 2025 Formula 1 season launch in London last night.
“I’ve been asked why the new 3E Turbo is not an Alpine, and I said ‘sorry, because the 5 Turbo was never an Alpine, it was a Renault, and if you want to do something authentic, you gotta respect the history of the thing, so it’s gonna be a yellow car’. Of course, you can customise the product, but this is the thing. So I don’t limit necessarily to Alpine.”
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There hasn’t been a Renaultsport model since the fourth-generation Mégane RS went off sale in 2023.
What’s more, the former Renaultsport base at Dieppe was returned to Alpine ownership when the brand was relaunched with the A110 sports car in 2017.
Indeed, there is a great deal of continuity between the two divisions. For instance, Jean-Pascal Dauce, the project lead for the recently launched A110 R Ultime hardcore special, was the chief engineer of the iconic Mégane R26.R from 2008.
Meanwhile, Renault brand CEO Fabrice Cambolive previously told Autocar that while “speaking about Renaultsport without any products is not essential”, his team will “see what we can do” if the electric hot hatch is a success, adding: “Let’s build our ‘sportivity’ step by step.”
Interestingly, the Renault 5 Turbo 3E is listed on the sponsors roster of the Alpine Formula 1 team, with branding set to appear on the wing mirrors of the 2025 race car.
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