A year on from massive disappointment, Alpine looks to erase that memory.
To say that the Alpine A424’s debut at the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans was inauspicious is a massive understatement. For a French team to suffer a double retirement at Le Mans – both from turbo failure and within the first six hours, no less – was a hefty blow, even considering the car’s short competition history.
Fast forward a year, and the feeling within the Alpine Endurance Team is quite improved. With two podiums on the season so far, a pair of thirds at Imola and Spa scored by the #36 squad of Mick Schumacher, Jules Gounon and Frédéric Makowiecki, the team is feeling more confident for this year’s 24 Hours. Not the least of that comes from some significant improvements to the car, in almost all areas.
“I think it’s mostly just having more time with the car and the systems and everything behind it,” explains Ferdinand Habsburg, driver of the #35 with Paul-Loup Chatin and Charles Milesi. “But still, it feels so different because the car has changed so much. It’s like everything we’ve done on the damping, on the mechanical side, on the software side … it’s so different to last year, so we still had to learn a lot and understand how to maximize the package that we’ve pushed up until Spa and make it work at Le Mans.”
Reliability for the car wasn’t necessarily a standout problem for the car, until it was. But many of the improvements to the underlying systems, including software, have not only elevated the reliability in the team’s eyes, but improved the pace as well. Both A424s made it through to Hyperpole qualifying for this year’s race.
That, along with the podium finishes in the two most recent races, has buoyed the team. Even with the different Balance of Performance for Le Mans, the team has better hopes for a good result. But the ultimate goal following the disaster of 2024, is a result … period.
“We are so proud of the job done by everybody in the team, to push very, very hard to achieve at the moment our level,” declares Team Principal Phillipe Sinault. “The level of confidence is difficult to say at the moment, because we are a little bit hurt by last year, to be honest. And all my life, I will keep in my mind this, this memory. So we have to make a reset.”
He adds that the pace, despite improvements, is not quite there. But a finish by both cars will be seen as a victory.
“Because we are not the favourite, and this is not the year to win the race, we’re here to finish the race first, and to make the best as possible.”
There is work to be done yet. Despite promising testing, exactly how qualifying and the race shake out for the team is still in question.
“I think the mood in the team is, like everyone, to push hard,” says Habsburg. “I think that we feel like we have a lot of work ahead, because we’re not convinced of our pace yet, of where we’re at compared to our competition. I’d say in general, we’re on the back foot a little bit when it comes to comparing to the others. But we’re just trying to maximise everything we’ve got.”
Habsburg believes handling is one area where there’s some solid room for improvement.
“I think we need to figure out a bit of downforce, to be honest. I think we need to focus on our corners, because in the end, the top speed is the same for everyone, just because of the dual band. So we have to make another step in the corners just to be able to battle with everyone. Being able to tackle the bumps and the curbs and everything is vital.”
If it is down to a matter of fine-tuning the package, that’s a big step forward. And the pace across the Hypercar field this year has made a significant leap, so Alpine being able to move with the rest of the field in that improvement is encouraging. But the team also knows, as it experienced so brutally a year ago, that Le Mans can be cruel no matter how prepared the drivers and crew.
“The experience from last year. It tells us that at Le Mans, anything can happen. I’d say everything that we’ve felt that we needed to improve on, we have, and everything on a reliability standpoint we needed to change, we’ve changed. But in the end, this race is so hard on the cars that we don’t really know. Apart from that, we’ve given it everything. So if it doesn’t work and we have issues, then it’ll be something that we wouldn’t have anticipated, which can always happen,” Habsburg notes.
“But in the way that we’re going, I think the mood is that we feel good about the car finishing the race.”
