From next year, Alpine will compete at the highest level in the World Endurance Championship, the brand announced today. The Renault sub-brand thus shows increasingly serious ambitions in motorsport.
At Renault, things have changed a lot. The car manufacturer has to cut costs considerably, but Alpine is not a victim of this. The sub-brand appears to be Renault’s new motorsport label. From next year, the Renault Formula 1 team will be renamed Alpine. In addition, the French will also participate at the highest level in the World Endurance Series. The Alpine Endurance Team will compete in the LMP1 class, fully registered as ‘Le Mans Prototype 1’. The yet to be announced car that Alpine will drive is on an Oreca chassis, while the English Gibson Technology provides the power source. This is the same recipe as the car of the Swiss Rebellion Racing, which will leave the LMP1 after this year.
A return
The Renault-Alpine A442B
Endurance racing is not new to Alpine. In the period from 1963 to 1978, the brand already participated in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. In 1978 Alpine even won the world famous event with the A442B. The Dieppe brand returned to Le Mans in 2013 in collaboration with the French Signatech, at the same time as the launch of the A110. In recent years, this combination has achieved several successes in the LMP2. So now it is time for a step up. Where in the LMP2 the options for the chassis and the engine are limited, in the LMP1 one has free choice. Previously, manufacturers often used this racing class to test new innovations. But a number of big names, including Porsche and Audi, have withdrawn. That is why this race class is phased out and the top of the WEC is renamed the ‘Le Mans Hypercar’ (LMH) class.
But before that happens, the LMP1 cars will be allowed to ride next year. Thanks to the Balance of Performance (BoP), the ACO, the organizer of the WEC and the 24 Hours of Le Mans, ensures that the playing field remains somewhat level. A good time for Alpine to get in, partly because the distance with the established order is smaller in this way. In the coming months, Alpine will announce more about the car and the drivers. The image of the announcement already shows an LMP1 car in the colors of the French flag, which appears to have driven away from a Michel Vaillant comic book.
In Dieppe there is certainly no lack of ambition. For example, they want to use the knowledge from the F1 team to progress in Le Mans. In addition, Alpine is organizing a customer competition in which the A110 Cup, GT4 and Rally will compete.