Nicolas Lapierre, André Negrão and Matthieu Vaxiviere will all return to the Alpine Endurance Team for their final FIA WEC season with the Alpine A480 Hypercar in 2022.
The team’s objectives for the coming season will be two-fold. To take on the opposition in the Hypercar class from Toyota Gazoo Racing, Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus and, in due course, the incoming Peugeot Sport 9X8 effort, and to prepare for the arrival of the future Alpine LMDh ‘Hypercar’, designed around an Oreca chassis and an Alpine engine developed in Viry-Châtillon, which will be entered from 2024.
Laurent Rossi, CEO of Alpine: “Alpine’s Endurance program underlines our commitment and our ambitions in motorsport. By competing in both Formula 1 and Endurance, Alpine is one of the rare brands to be present in two FIA-labelled world championships and we will find other prestigious opponents there. Philippe Sinault’s teams have my confidence with a proven track record in this discipline and numerous successes having already made the colours of Alpine shine at Le Mans and on the international scene for almost ten years now. The challenge promises to be ever greater, but I am convinced that our crew will once again live up to the expectations of Alpine brand enthusiasts. »
Philippe Sinault, Team Principal Alpine Elf Endurance Team: “As we approach our tenth year with Alpine, we were keen to renew our trio at the wheel of the A480 in the Hypercar category. André, Matthieu and Nicolas truly embody this project and, like us, we have done everything to continue our collaboration this year. We have been able to find our balance in our functioning and in our relationships, two essential elements for success. They are already imbued with the spirit of our team and this is an ideal situation, which offers us a lot of serenity and fertile bases to meet our next challenges. The trust is already established and it will save us a lot of time. At the same time, the off-season was very short, but we did our best to improve our package. With the arrival of new competitors in the category, the technical ingredients are likely to evolve and we have carried out a huge amount of in-depth work with the aim of making an even better copy than last year. We have to be ambitious when playing in the elite, and we do our best every day to live up to this prestigious and exhilarating challenge. »
