Portugal’s Man O’ Endurance is back in top class sportscar racing as of next year, as yesterday it was announced that after a two year hiatus from Hypercar, Antonio Felix Da Costa has joined Alpine’s 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship lineup.

The move comes after intense speculation of current Alpine driver Mick Schumacher’s potential move to Indycar next year, with the ex-F1 racer testing Rahal Letterman Lannigan’s #26 Dallara DW12 last week as part of what the team called a trial run. Combined with Schumacher’s more recent comments that he feels more at home in single seaters, should Mick prove competitive in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway test I honestly could see him over in the States next year.

If the rumours are proved true, it would point to the former Le Mans class winner being signed as the Schumacher’s replacement.

I’ll admit I was a little blindsided by the announcement, as despite his undoubtable talent Da Costa seemingly couldn’t purchase a passing mention into the Hypercar rumour mill. And it’s not like he really should be considered an outsider either, having competed with JOTA during their 2023 campaign running a sole Porsche 963. In the five rounds he contested alongside Will Stevens and Ye Yefei – both of whom currently compete for Cadillac and Ferrari’s Hypercar outfits respectively – it was a successful first year as they finished in the points every race. They were also just one agonising second from taking their first ever podium at Bahrain’s season finale.

At Le Mans they had a standout showing, coming from 60th on the grid to lead overall after 6 hours, before clawing back no less than four laps after crashing hard at the Porsche curves. A strong recovery saw them claim 10th overall when the chequered flag flew, and that was their ‘worst’ result of the season.

But for 2024 Da Costa was dropped by JOTA despite their expansion into a two-car operation, the Portuguese pilot focusing instead on his Formula E campaign having signed a multi-year deal with Porsche’s factory team. It meant giving up the prospect of a factory drive for two seasons. Ahead of the 25/26 season however, he transferred over to Jaguar and with it comes the freedom to pursue his Hypercar ambitions once again.

It’s not Da Costa’s first rodeo with a factory team either, having come through earlier in his career to the BMW MTEK M8 GTE squad during their 2018-19 season, which also gave the then 26 year-old his Le Mans debut. It was less impressive than his JOTA outing, as his #82 took a best result of 2nd at Fuji culminating in a 10th place finish in the final standings, effectively last of the factory GTE teams.

For Alpine themselves its some very shrewd business, as if there was one man just begging to be snapped up by a Hypercar outfit I’d have to say it was the man from Cascais. He’s both a safe pair of hands and a rapid driver who’s managed to adapt well to the vastly different driving experiences of sportscar racing and Formula E. I’m really excited to see how he gets on with Alpine next year, although it only spurs the question further:

With the 2026 WEC entry list still to be confirmed, just who will Alpine part ways with once the cars cross the line in Bahrain?

I’ll leave that one for you to chew on before Friday’s Mouthpiece.

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