IndyCar announced on Tuesday that it has halted development of a new 2.4 liter engine formula for the 2024 season, and will instead be fitting the hybrid systems that have been in development onto the existing 2.2 liter engines supplied by Chevrolet and Honda since 2012. The announcement comes as the series has failed over the last decade to add a third engine manufacturer to the series, resulting in higher costs for current engine partners Chevrolet and Honda, which would have risen further with the continued development of a brand new engine.

In a statement, IndyCar president Jay Frye emphasized that the addition of hybrid power “will provide even more excitement with horsepower increases over the current engine”, although it’s unclear at the moment how much faster the car will be given the extra weight coupled with the current 2.2 liter displacement formula. The series also reiterated their commitment to sustainability, which includes not only the continued progress with adopting a hybrid power system, but also the introduction of fully renewable fuels and guayule rubber tires beginning in 2023.

The move away from new internal combustion engines is a further shifting of goals since the initial announcement of a new IndyCar formula for the 2022 season, which was first pushed back to 2023 and now 2024 as a result of COVID related issues in the past couple of years. While development of the 2.4 liter engines was referred to as “paused” in the Indycar release, there has been no target given for development to resume.

Additionally, at this point plans for a new chassis, which would have been optimized for both the new power system and the aeroscreen added in 2020, have been shelved indefinitely, so this hybrid system will be retrofitted to the latest evolution of the Dallara DW12 chassis first introduced in 2012.