To get the ball rolling, Andretti had already signed a preliminary contract with Renault years ago. But that expired in March 2023. And at the moment, the French are showing no great desire to resume negotiations on a continuation. Renault, alias Alpine, does not want to get caught in the crossfire of a power struggle between the FIA and FOM.
I thought the regulations required any additional teams to use Renault engines since they have no customers?
Or does Renault just get the first option to be the supplier?
If a team doesn’t have any contract with a PU supplier, they are assigned Pu with the least customers.
If Andretti enters in 2025 and don’t have a PU deal, Renault will be forced to supply them. If they enter in 2026 or later, there are three PUs with only one team: Renault (Alpine), Honda (Aston martin) and Audi (Sauber), so any of them could be forced to supply them.
Making a contract ahead of time was important to show Andretti has no yolo attitude about entering the competition.
Fair point. I suppose the lack of interest from Renault to renew the contract indicates they wouldn’t be required to supply Andretti.
I wonder who they would end up going with if they do enter as a constructor.
It could be that they know they will be required to anyway, so no point sticking their head above the parapet by making a new deal before they have to.
The requirement will only be there for 2025. For 2026 there will be three engine suppliers with only one team, Alpine/Renault, Audi, and Honda but Honda is GM’s IndyCar competitor, so that one is ruled out.
Fair point
“Renault, alias Alpine, does not want to get caught in the crossfire of a power struggle between the FIA and FOM.”
They’ll renew the deal once it’s clear if Andretti enters or not. They want a customer. Having two fewer cars hurt their reliability.
Something like that, I think the way it’s worded is actually the engine manufacturer with the least teams they supplied.