Over the past three months or so, Ian James - team principal of the McLaren Formula E squad - had been positive about the chances of keeping the team alive.
He had already done so once, when Mercedes pulled out in 2022 yet the team stayed on the grid and transformed into McLaren.
Around the time of the Jakarta E-Prix in mid-June, James's demeanour changed. And it changed quickly.
This is believed to have been because the prospect of a tie-up with one of the Stellantis brands - either Citroen or Opel - suddenly and terminally fell away after looking promising.
"Unfortunately, despite the fact that we'd had quite some significant interest in the team and some great opportunities, ultimately we weren't able to find the solution that we needed," James told The Race on Monday.
"It's come as a bit of a shock, despite the fact that we knew that it was always a possible scenario."
The depressing reality hit home to James and the staff he employs last Thursday. That came less than 24 hours on from the team revealing a one-off livery at a packed out event in London's Trafalgar Square, ahead of what will now be McLaren's last Formula E race at ExCeL in a few weeks' time.
There's no single reason why McLaren could not attract a new buyer or investor.
The Stellantis talks were said to be detailed and advanced. The Race understands they were derailed because the car manufacturing giant wanted specific levels of autonomy over the team, particularly on where and how the cars were run.
What Stellantis didn't want was a situation that it now has with current partner Penske, where it feels its DS brand is hamstrung over some key decisions because it does not have freedom in decision making as much as it did in its successful alliance with the Techeetah team from 2018-22.
This is because the entry licence is owned by Jay Penske, who is free to make as many decisions as he pleases. His ball, his bat, etc. This was particularly visible in early 2024 when Penske hired ex-Jaguar technical chief Phil Charles, who proceeded to make many amendments to the overall set-up of the team.
The MSG conundrum
The complex drama around Stellantis' other Formula E team - what is currently Maserati MSG - was also in play.
This entity is accruing significant debt at present and is likely to lose its prestigious Maserati manufacturer branding. Maserati has its own tremendous automotive market challenges right now.
Formula E is enabling this team to survive from a financial standpoint at present. This is far from a healthy situation and one that is known to be severely irritating other teams and manufacturers that are investing big sums into the world championship now and in the Gen4 future, while seeing this team being propped up by the championship.
Maserati MSG is surviving via Formula E hand-outs and debt management, which mostly sits with Formula E Operations now, as does its licence. If Stellantis wasn't likely to take the team on itself for next season and beyond (although there is no clear understanding of what will happen to the debt as of now), then it could easily be an 18-car grid next season.
That can't be allowed to play out, and it won't because Stellantis believes in Formula E and will likely have to pivot its strategy of involvement with a different model by taking MSG on and marketing another of its brands using it.
But how long and how efficiently can teams and manufacturers stumble on with this arrangement affecting their return-on-investment, especially when their licences are undermined like that, and especially so with a more expensive Gen4 rules set coming up?
Did the MSG situation also adversely and directly affect the prospects of a McLaren sale in recent months? It would hardly have helped.
McLaren made it clear from the outset to interested parties that a long-term investment, rather than making a quick profit from the team, was essential. A US family fund was an option at one stage.
While the trigger for the team's early demise was essentially that its title partner NEOM was unable to commit to a fourth season, without the future Saudi city partnership making the McLaren transformation possible, the story of this team would have ended in 2022 with Stoffel Vandoorne's title win at the end of the Mercedes era.
Time was also against a new saviour deal. While James was talking to all of the signed up manufacturers for Gen4 – Porsche, Jaguar, Stellantis, Lola and Nissan – there were also prospective new ones on his radar too.
The most serious of those appears to have been Hyundai, as The Race detailed last December before the NEOM and McLaren exit was known. But the timing was out of kilter with this discussion, as Hyundai is currently concentrating on its World Rally Championship and World Endurance Championship programmes, the latter with luxury brand Genesis which begins in full next season.
James has now fronted two teams that have been commercially successful. The Mercedes EQ and NEOM McLaren entities were both well funded and had familiar and expansive partnerships.
In the end, time was just against him when it came to creating a third iteration of this team.
With entries needing to be filed for the 2025/26 season by mid-September, a complete commitment for investment needed to be in place by the end of June before any lengthy due diligence could be completed.
Turning Mercedes into McLaren and keeping the team on the grid three years ago was a stunning achievement.
A repeat fairytale just wasn't possible.
