The potential acquisition of the current Alpine A424 Hypercar programme by Chinese OEM Geely is now almost certainly not going forward.
In the wake of Renault Group’s announcement that its Alpine programme with the A424 LMDh would cease at the end of the current season, there were several expressions of interest in taking on what was already a race-winning package.
Whilst it was initially reported that Chinese OEM BYD was the principal interested party, that proved to be incorrect; BYD has emerged as being significantly more interested in finding a route into Formula One. Indeed, more than one well-placed source has told DSC that BYD has never had face-to-face contact at a senior level regarding the Alpine Hypercar programme.
Instead, Chinese automotive giant Geely emerged as, by far, the most likely interested party with a series of visits and meetings that initially looked very positive for the future of the programme.
In more recent weeks, though, multiple issues emerged. Interested parties spoke of issues over intellectual property of electronics and control systems, and other barriers caused by ongoing discussions between Geely and Renault Group over existing and future road car collaborations.
More recently, a dispute over what insiders from the Geely side claim was a markedly inflated value of the programme placed by Renault Group appears to have been a significant factor in the interest cooling from the Chinese side of the table.
Whilst discussions are still progressing between the two sides, the reality is that the motorsport aspects of those talks are effectively off the table.
Realistically, that likely puts the A424s out of competition for the 2027 season. The remaining options for next season include either finding another OEM willing to step into the breach, or, almost equally unlikely, finding sufficient finance to continue as a privately-entered entity.
The latter, with a significant eight-figure Euro target, is known to be under discussion, but the window of opportunity to achieve that is very short.
The current and future status of Signatech, in which Renault Group are still believed to hold a 49% share, is unclear at present, with no public statement from the French automotive concern on its intentions to retain or divest itself of its interest in the company, still with majority control from founder Philippe Sinault.
There remains other interest in the A424, both with and without Signatech support but, at present, by far the most likely outcome looks to be that the A424s will be parked indefinitely after the WEC season finale in Monza.
As for the drivers, except Antonio Felix Da Costa, who is known to have a 2027 contract elsewhere, the stop-start nature of the developments in this saga has put them in a difficult position. There have been few positive utterances on their future prospects in Hypercar from more than one of the drivers affected since the late summer.
