Of the new crop of Hypercar factories in 2024, you could argue that Alpine and its pair of A424s have shown the most promise. Look at the standings and the full-season #35 duo of Paul-Loup Chatin and Charles Milesi sit 15th, ahead of the two BMW crews and both the Lamborghini and (now departed) Isotta trios, after points scores at Qatar and Spa.
There is still work to be done before Alpine can contend for race wins, and the disastrous outing at Le Mans has posed questions about the team’s engine package that still require answers. But, there is quiet optimism in the camp that the 2025 campaign will be a strong one, with the French marque aiming to follow in Porsche’s footsteps and take a big step in its second season.
When speaking with Alpine Endurance Team boss Philippe Sinault in Brazil, it quickly became clear that he feels the team’s performances this year have been in line with his pre-season expectations – Le Mans aside.
Reliability has been a weakness for the A424, and the car has been especially sensitive to different circuit styles. Sinualt points out though that it is still early days for the project, which made its debut after a test programme that wasn’t as long or comprehensive as he would have liked.
Nevertheless, the French brand is here in the WEC with an ORECA-based challenger that looks the part, sounds the part, and has the potential to turn heads in the not-so-distant future.
“The expectation stays the same,” Sinault says ahead of the final leg of the 2024 season, “even though Le Mans was not like we expected. We have to keep optimising the time we have on track to build up knowledge and understanding of the car to be ready to fight at the front in 2025.
“It’s not a lack of ambition, we are just growing step by step. We are closer to the others now, the gap is six, seven-tenths, and if we want to progress we have to keep finishing races.
“It’s important to understand that we had two options with a new car and a new programme,” he continues, “we could have either tested alone to understand the car or enter it immediately for competition. We made the second choice, we were brave and we have to accept that sometimes we have issues. We feel the best way to understand a car and progress is to compete. That’s why we are here.”
While the car’s debut at Qatar was its most impressive showing so far, with the #35 finishing an impressive seventh overall and in the points, the opening phase of the 2024 Le Mans 24 Hours lives longer in the memory. Alpine headed into its home race with high hopes, but these were quickly dashed when terminal engine issues saw both of its cars retire with the same root cause before 10 pm on Saturday night.
“It was huge, it was intense,” Sinualt reflects. “We learnt the most about the car there, even though we finished the race so early. We took a lot of experience from the week before, during testing and practice.
“It’s a young project, we identified that our issue could happen. We had issues of this type before but not before 24 hours of testing, not that early. It surprised us that after five hours we had these issues.
“We identified the trouble. Now we will react with some inputs into an update but it’s too soon to say if it will be in a joker loop or not. Because the time was so tight with São Paulo we can’t make changes now, we just have to adapt the way we use the engine.
“Le Mans is key to the project, the foundation is there. After Le Mans, we remain convinced that the package is perfect.”
Sinault explained that the problem has been identified and is being managed. A permanent fix is being evaluated, and the determination needs to be made if it requires a ‘Joker’. Depending on how it all comes together, the change will be made in either “September, October or 2025.”
“Everyone has worked hard to prevent this issue from happening again,” he says. “It’s too early (now) to make big changes and play ‘Jokers’. The main part of the improvements to the car will be on this side with the team.
“The package and the base are really good. We are close to the others with very low mileage. So we prefer to say at the moment that we have to work well as a team. We have identified items that could be better but there’s no time for this at the moment.”
With the summer break now over, the remaining races of the season at CoTA, Fuji and Bahrain beckon and they present interesting challenges.
“Our car is a low downforce car at the moment,” Sinualt says. “If we want to progress, we have to work on tracks with different profiles, and the end of the calendar has three very different tracks. It’s going to give us a clear view by the end of the season. On low downforce tracks, we are ok, we’ve made progress with the brakes and TC and so on.
“The freight between São Paulo and CoTa means we haven’t had the opportunity to book tests in Europe. But we have identified some subjects in terms of management of the engine and MGU and so on, and we are working on that.
“It will be an intense autumn and winter programme for us because we have to summarise all our information and make some improvements. Maybe we will play some ‘Jokers’, we don’t know, but the winter will be the right time to prepare for 2025, not now.
“You never know how it will play out, but our expectation is to take steps with the car and keep the same drivers (for 2025). We have created a foundation with them.”
