Alpine has confirmed that its Hypercar reserve driver Jules Gounon will make his debut for the team at this weekend’s FIA WEC race at Imola, standing in for the injured Ferdinand Habsburg.
Habsburg, who suffered two fractured lumbar vertebrae in a testing crash last month at Aragon, will sit out the race to continue his recovery. He also missed the ELMS season opener at Barcelona last weekend, where he was due to compete with COOL Racing in LMP2.
In his place Gounon will share the #35 A424 with Charles Milesi and Paul-Loup Chatin for what will be his FIA WEC Hypercar debut. Gounon, who is also a Mercedes factory driver, was originally named with Climax Racing for the opening round of World Challenge Asia at Sepang this weekend. Instead, he will compete in Italy, with Ralf Aron replacing him in the #22 Climax Racing AMG GT3.
“Ferdinand will be on our minds,” said Philippe Sinault, Alpine Endurance team principal. “It is a hard blow, but that is part of the life of a team, and everything is in place to ensure that he is with us thanks to modern communication methods.
“We’ve decided to replace him with Jules at Imola. It’s never easy to make your debut in such a context, but Jules was identified, selected and signed to fill this role, even though we never imagined it would happen so early like this.
“He’s fundamentally ready but still has much to learn, even if he has already demonstrated his mastery of several aspects, given his track record in GT. We honed his preparation during our latest tests with his six teammates and then in the simulator to prepare him for all our processes.
“This weekend promises to be extraordinarily instructive for the whole team.”
The 6 Hours of Imola is set to be the second race globally for the A424, after the season-opener in Qatar back in March.
Image courtesy of Alpine
