Alpine Endurance Team’s Sporting Director reflects positively on the French manufacturer’s bright start to the 2025 FIA World Endurance Championship campaign. A year on from a nightmare edition, Alpine will be eagerly awaited by its home crowd at the 24 Hours of Le Mans this week (11-15 June)…
For motorsport fans, it’s the most wonderful time of the year. This weekend, 186 drivers in 62 cars will attempt to go down in the history of endurance racing’s most legendary event – the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Round four of the FIA WEC season stirs up passion, and excitement is mounting. That is particularly the case for French marques like Alpine, eager to shine in front of the home crowd. “We can’t wait. We've been preparing for it for the last 11 months,” the manufacturer’s Sporting Director Nicolas Lapierre tells fiawec.com. “For us, it's the most important event of the year.”
Alpine is back at La Sarthe, one year on from an edition that turned into a nightmare for the #35 and #36 A424 Hypercars. The blue-liveried prototypes both ran into critical engine issues, forcing them to retire less than six hours after Zinédine Zidane had flagged away the start. “We knew that this maiden 24 Hours of Le Mans [for the car] would be a steep learning curve, even more so being only the A424’s fourth race,” acknowledged Alpine VP Motorsports Bruno Famin at the time. “We will analyse the reasons for this mechanical problem so that we can come back stronger next year.”
Alpine Endurance Team followed up its words with actions. Off the back of that crushing disappointment, the team rolled up its sleeves to make the package more reliable, which notably led to the A424s raising their game and their first podium finish, at last September’s 6 Hours of Fuji. “We had a big re-think,” reveals Lapierre. “The team did an amazing job.”
Over the winter, Alpine used one of its five Evo Jokers to further secure the V6 engine and turbo: “We did simulations and lots of miles on the test bench with all the engines. We did everything that could be done. We’re much more confident, more prepared and more serene than last year.”
The 93rd running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans promises to be special in more ways than one for Lapierre. The Thonon-born ace is four times an LMP2 class-winner at Le Mans – in 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019 – and he will be closely following the race from the pit wall in his role as Sporting Director. “I'm in charge, first of all, of choosing the drivers, then of the strategy,” he explains. “I act as a bridge between the drivers and the engineers. I’m lucky enough to know the car well, having developed it and raced it. I’m involved in tyre choices, stint lengths, fuel savings and so on.”
The 41-year-old’s departure from the drivers’ roster towards the end of last season obliged Alpine to find a replacement for the #36 car. One of the new Sporting Director’s first tasks was to recruit an experienced racer. His number one choice was Frédéric Makowiecki who, Lapierre admits, was seduced by the project and fits in perfectly. “I’m feeling more and more confident with the car”, added the former Porsche driver. “The more races we do, the more comfortable I feel and the more I can harness its potential.”
Alongside team-mates Jules Gounon and Mick Schumacher, Makowiecki has already piloted the #36 Alpine to consecutive podium finishes at Imola and Spa-Francorchamps. However, prior to that the 2025 FIA WEC season got off to a poor start for Alpine, with both cars finishing outside of the points in the curtain-raising Qatar 1812km. “We had some minor collisions at the start,” Lapierre specifies. “The cars were damaged and we couldn’t perform the way we wanted. It was a rude awakening.”
At the 6 Hours of Imola, Alpine took third place courtesy of a strategic masterstroke, demonstrating the progress made by the team since its entry into Hypercar racing last year. “We changed the spread of the last three stops. This allowed us to drive with a lighter load and out of the traffic, which is not easy to manage at Imola. Last year, we followed our competitors’ lead in terms of strategy. This time, we made our own decision, and it paid off.”
At last month’s TotalEnergies 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, Alpine again showed adaptability by off-setting its strategy after Mick Schumacher suffered a slow puncture. “We can clearly see that the team is gaining in maturity, performance and pit operations,” asserts Lapierre. “Right from the free practice sessions, we saw that we had pace. We had a superb race and even battled for victory. It’s been a very positive start to the season. We’re among the best now.”
Thanks to the experience and confidence racked up over more than a year, Alpine seems to hold the cards to achieve a convincing result at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. However, Lapierre is approaching the event with caution and humility. “Achieving a clean, solid race is much more complex in a 21-car field (with the additional entries compared to regular FIA WEC rounds) – it requires a great deal of composure and attention from the drivers,” adds Alpine’s Sporting Director. “The teams are so tightly-matched that you can’t afford to make a mistake regarding tyre choices or stint lengths.”
With a wealth of experience in the championship, having been a part of the picture right back at the beginning with the Toyota TS030 Hybrid LMP1 in 2012, Lapierre measures just how far the FIA and the ACO have come towards steering endurance racing into a new golden age, with more than 300,000 spectators expected at Le Mans to experience international motorsport’s most intense 24 hours.
“The number of manufacturers and the level of drivers is just incredible, and the cars are magnificent,” he concludes. “The public tremendously enjoys watching the races. We’re lucky to be part of this era.”
Watch FIA WEC live or on-demand via the official FIA WEC TV app – your full-access pass to the FIA World Endurance Championship including the iconic 24 Hours of Le Mans. Don’t miss a moment. For further information, check out the app.
