supermarkus

German outlet Auto Motor und Sport conducted an interview with Mario Illien himself. Relative late in part 2 of the interview he was asked about involvement with the 2026 engines and he replied that there were multiple inquiries but nothing advanced enough to talk in detail.

In a bit of fun speculation I'd say there are three somewhat likely candidates:

• Red Bull – they approached Ilmor to improve the Renault engine when they were Renault's customer
• Honda – they sold their UK operations to Red Bull and already worked with Honda on the last-gen IndyCar engine
• Cadillac/GM – The current Chevrolet Indy V6 has been co-developed by Ilmor.

"Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber"

"Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber"

Michael Schmidt from Auto, Motor und Sport spoke with Michael Andretti:

"The whole thing is actually no longer an Andretti gig at all, it's a factory operation by GM. And in fact, all the people being recruited, even in the chassis area, are now already being recruited by General Motors and no longer by Andretti."

Michael Schmidt from AMS talked to Andreas Seidl. He said investments ongoing. Schmidt thinks that the source of those rumors may be some in the Audi hierarchy who may not like the move but the ball is rolling, "Audi past the point of no return" and can't backtrack now.

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.

They claim that they have two different sources for that.