António Félix da Costa marked his return to the FIA World Endurance Championship in fine style in today’s annual Rookie Test at Bahrain International Circuit (BIC), topping the overall timesheets behind the wheel of Alpine Endurance Team’s A424 Hypercar.
Disregarding a one-off LMP2 outing in this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, da Costa has been absent from the FIA WEC grid since the end of 2023, but next season, the former Formula E champion will rejoin the fray with Alpine.
Following an initial shakedown run in the race-winning A424 at Le Mans’ Bugatti Circuit in France last month, da Costa completed 85 laps of BIC’s 5.412km layout. He stopped the clocks towards the end of the afternoon session with a time of 1m49.214s – 0.159secs ahead of regular Alpine driver Frédéric Makowiecki’s morning benchmark.
“It’s amazing to be back in this paddock with Alpine in Hypercar,” the Portuguese ace enthused. “For this day to finally come and to get back on-track has been great. I’ve been doing endurance racing for ten years, and it’s just like riding a bicycle – I left the garage this morning and after only two or three laps, I felt right at home in the car and in the championship.
“On the technical side, my first proper interaction with the race team was easy, which is exactly what I was looking for. Everybody is very driven, everybody is looking for performance and everybody is pushing hard. We’re conscious of the hard work that lies in front of us to get to where we want to be, but we’re all here to achieve the same goals. It’s going to be a fun winter ahead and I’m looking forward to next year.”
Fellow FIA WEC returnee Nick Cassidy wound up second amongst the Rookies, similarly saving his best until last as he lapped just 0.162s shy of da Costa in Team Peugeot TotalEnergies’ 9X8. Lilou Wadoux – the series’ first-ever female race-winner – was the third-quickest Hypercar Rookie in the world championship-winning #51 Ferrari AF Corse 499P, followed by multiple GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup title-holder Charles Weerts in BMW M Team WRT’s M Hybrid V8.
Recently-crowned European Le Mans Series champion Ollie Gray logged 76 laps in the #50 Ferrari 499P, impressing by posting the fifth-fastest Rookie time, while Mattia Drudi – LMGT3 category pole-sitter for this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, and a podium-finisher in yesterday’s Bapco Energies 8 Hours of Bahrain – was another to impress, ending up sixth in Aston Martin THOR Team’s V12-engined Valkyrie.
In LMGT3, reigning Le Mans Cup LMP3 champion Hadrien David outpaced his fellow Rookies in Manthey 1st Phorm’s Porsche 911 R GT3 – which less than 24 hours earlier had sewn up a second consecutive title in the category. Prominent ELMS protagonist Tom Fleming ran the Frenchman closest in the same car, with Nicola Lacorte lapping third-quickest of the newcomers for VISTA AF Corse.
Ex-Formula 1 racer Logan Sargeant enjoyed 57 laps inside the cockpit of Proton Competition’s Ford Mustang, peaking with a time of 2m02.717s in the morning session – just under a second shy of David’s best effort and fourth-highest Rookie.
Check out the day’s lap times.
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