Ferrari team principal Frédéric Vasseur said the arrival of General Motors (GM) in F1, with its Cadillac brand, as a powertrain supplier would be a good thing, but highlighted the precarious nature of the maintaining a significant number of engine manufacturers in the sport.
When F1 embarks on a new regulation cycle at the start of the 2026 season, it will have five engine suppliers. This number would have been six if Alpine had not decided to cut the Renault F1 program to become a client of Mercedes.
We will have to wait until 2028 – at best – to arrive at 6 engine manufacturers, GM joining Mercedes, Ferrari, Honda, Red Bull PowerTrains and Audi – the latter two themselves being new engine manufacturers in 2026.
“It's a new engine manufacturer for the future, and that's a good thing. But we all have to keep in mind what's happened in the past – F1 is a cycle,” warns Vasseur, who will supply the Ferrari engine to Cadillac F1 while awaiting the arrival of its own engine.
“There were a few times in my life when F1 flew, like in 2006-2007. Or there are painful times like in 2017-2018, when at one point we weren't even sure if we had more than two manufacturers for engines.”
“It means that if they are able to come up with an engine, it's good for F1, but you never know what will happen in the future – you saw what Alpine decided (by stopping the Renault engine).”
