Of 2024’s debuting Hypercars, Alpine was definitely the most convincing across the year, and in 2025 they could well challenge for overall victories. 

It’s worth noting before we dive into the team their presence in the early days of this ruleset. Granted, that was basically an old Rebellion chassis from their LMP1 days at a time where Toyota pretty much won every race in a similar fashion to Audi’s streak of le mans wins in the 2000’s. 

But that car, officially entered as the Alpine A480 is a world away from the current project. For one, Alpine now have their own LMDH chassis, and for two they’ve made a more conscious effort to pay homage to their Le Mans winning A442 from the Group 6 days.

Alpine’s return to the World Endurance Championship in 2024 was much anticipated, as the platinum era really turned it up a notch. The car’s first race saw it perform surprisingly well, as though they finished two laps down the no.35 crew were seventh overall, bagging good points on debut. 

And that was mostly how they fared all season long. The car’s pace grew and it soon became clear they were the best of the rest, with the pace and reliability to present a quiet challenge to the likes of Porsche, Toyota and Ferrari. 

Le Mans was their ultimate undoing however, as having finished every race thus far with both cars they were all but out by the seventh hour. Ironically, their Mecachrome engines that had proved doubters wrong all season blew out at the worst possible race. 

That obviously sparked something inside them, because after that disaster on home soil they really began to impress. The no.36 car scored its first points of the season in Sao Paulo and every other race featured both Alpine crews in the points. This momentum culminated at a chaotic six hour race at Fuji, where the car claimed its first podium and set up a tense fight for fourth in the championship against BMW. They would win this by the skin of their teeth, in fact it came down to the last ten minutes of the season but the job was completed.

Fourth in the championship on debut was a fantastic result for the team, but can they crack the top three?

The good news is very little has actually changed for Alpine, which while some might say could cause them to fall behind their competitors, I think it’s exactly what they need. By the end of last season, Alpine looked like a real threat, and now having used their first Hypercar joker to try and fix the engine issues they could look even more convincing. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The only change in their driver lineup across both cars is the signing of ex-Porsche Penske man Frederic Mackoweiki, who will partner Joules Gounon (also awarded a drive after deputising for Ferdinand Habsburg last year) and Mick Schumacher in the no.36 car. The sister no.35 machine sees a retained lineup of Paul-Loup Chatin, Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi.

All the signs are there for the french marque to continue building on their 2024 momentum, and I won’t be surprised if they do find themselves on the podium more frequently. 2025 looks to be an immensely competitive year in the World Endurance Championship, and if last year is anything to go by, don’t be surprised to see Alpine upset the establishment...

thumbnail credit – Kevin Decherf from France, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons