God that's nuts. You're a manufacturer team, Renault, using the name of your high-performance line, Alpine, and you don't think it would look really weird to not use your own engines? What kind of advertising is that? ๐
I don't think it looks any weirder than McLaren or Aston Martin running Mercedes engines honestly. The Renault engine is shit and it's taken this long for the team to consider alternatives.
They are closer to Ferrari before todt joined and booted out all the talentless but connected hacks Ferrari employed back then, except with a smaller budget. They really didn't help themselves sacking or pushing out people who knew what they were doing and replacing them with corporate Renault yes men who know less about racing than they do about quantum physics.
Renault probably should sell up, already giving up on the engine side anyway, are they giving up on their brand also, dropping a merc engine in an Alpine isn't the answer...