Here is the thing about racing politics: everything is fine until it suddenly, disastrously is not. According to Motorsport.com Italia, negotiations between Geely Group and the Signatech team to rescue Alpine's Hypercar program in the FIA World Endurance Championship have suffered a sudden and severe stop, leaving the future of the A424 machines in serious jeopardy.
Only recently, team principal Philippe Sinault of the Alpine Endurance Team insisted at Fuji that everything was under control and well underway. With the entry deadline for the 2027 WEC season looming on November 26, Sinault had projected total calm. But behind the scenes, reality has bitten hard, and the grid might be missing its Oreca-chassied LMDh cars entirely next year.
The mess started when the new CEO of Renault Group made the decision to shut down Alpine's factory WEC racing efforts. In response, Signatech founder Sinault scrambled to find a lifeline, fighting to preserve the operations built on years of LMP2 and LMP1 expertise. At first, whispers pointed toward Chinese manufacturer BYD, which even set up a presence in the Le Mans 24h village. Then the focus shifted to Geely Group, a brand already tied to Renault through road car partnerships in Latin America.
Representatives from the Hangzhou-based company went so far as to tour the facilities at Viry-Châtillon and Bourges to evaluate taking over the A424 project, rebranding the machines, and keeping the Signatech crew's hard work alive. Neither Alpine nor Geely officially confirmed those meetings, yet the talks progressed far enough to convince Sinault that the program was safe. Now, that optimism looks entirely misplaced.
If this collapse holds true, seeing the A424 on the grid for 2027 becomes practically impossible. There remains a narrow window where a sabbatical year could be taken to prep for a 2028 debut with Geely, but the current outlook leaves Sinault and Signatech facing the very real possibility of shutting down operations altogether following the 6h of Monza on November 8.
