Rumor: Andretti F1 team may be switching engines

Veteran F1 reporter Joe Saward reports in his latest blog that rumors in the paddock at Marina Bay (Singapore GP) were saying that Andretti no longer has a valid Renault engine deal.

If true, that would be great news for Andretti because the Renault engines are the worst on the F1 grid.

Saward reports that he has not heard of any deal being terminated, but one might have lapsed and has not been renewed. Renault has had a clean out of staff and Andretti may no longer fit.

It is quite logical for Renault to be more worried about doing better itself, rather than complicating matters with customers. Cynics will no doubt suggest that Renault might think that an upgrade to its engine is worth more than a possible customer deal.

We here at AutoRacing1.com rumored back in January that to gain acceptance by all involved, Cadillac should come with its own F1 engine designed with Ilmor, which is owned by Roger Penske.

Ilmor does the Chevy IndyCar engine, and of course, Chevy and Cadillac are GM brands. In the rumor linked above, we explain just how involved Ilmor has been in helping all the engine manufacturers on the F1 grid today.

Another option might be to be a Honda customer in 2026 like Aston Martin will be. Honda and GM have business dealings on and we know how good Honda engines are in IndyCar and F1.

Andretti also has a close relationship with Honda HPD and it was just announced this week that Honda HPD (North American Racing Division) and Honda HRC (they do the Red Bull F1 engines out of Japan) are joining forces in 2024.

July 23, 2023

Michael Andretti signed a deal to use Renault engines badged as Cadillacs for his proposed Formula1 team. He picked the slowest engine and must like his cars running dead last.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

It turns out that the current Renault Formula 1 Power Unit is down about 30hp from its competitors and with the current regulations in place they are not allowed to make performance upgrades to catch up.

Now, Renault is begging for some relief for its anemic engines.

Engine area of Alpine F1 car. If Andretti had signed to run Mercedes engines, Toto Wolff would have made sure his team was already approved to enter F1. Instead, Wolff is lobbying F1 hard to reject Andretti.

High-level sources have revealed to Autosport that the topic of engine equalization has been added to the agenda of next week’s meeting of the F1 Commission that is to take place at the Belgian Grand Prix.

The FIA technical regulations are explicit that modifications to the power units can be made from now on only “for the sole purposes of reliability, safety, cost saving, or minimal incidental changes.”

However, with the FIA feeling that there is evidence of performance differences having opened up, there are grounds for potential action to be taken to help level things up.

In a statement that was sent out after a meeting of the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council in September of that year, it said: “Following suggestions that there is a differential between the performance of engines used in F1, the World Motor Sport Council has decided that should this be the case, and should the teams wish to eliminate this performance differential, they may be allowed to do so by reducing the performance of the more powerful engines. However, no engine upgrades will be allowed.”