Alpine A424, the “best of the others”

WECHyperCar

May 17

Alpine is fourth in the 2024 FIA Hypercar World Endurance Manufacturers Championship after the 6 hours of Spa behind the difficult to access Porsche, Toyota and Ferrari.

Encouraging performance for Alpine Endurance Team

After a strong P7 at Losail in the opening round “Qatar 1812”, scoring 15 points, Alpine finished 9th the TotalEnergies 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps (behind the Porsche, Ferrari and Toyota), scoring an additional 8 points. With 23 points in the 2024 FIA Hypercar World Endurance Manufacturers Championship, they are ahead of BMW, Peugeot, Lamborghini and Cadillac!

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Spa-Francorchamps.

the Alpine A424 reached a new milestone by securing a place in Hyperpole for the first time. Fifth in the opening qualifying session, Charles Milesi eventually finished eighth after a broken drain pump curtailed his efforts.

When the race was resumed, Jules Gounon and Mick Schumacher got back in their respective Alpine A424s for the final stint. The Frenchman confirmed his quick adaptation to the Hypercar by taking ninth place from the #93 Peugeot. Meanwhile, Mick Schumacher put in a faultless display, enabling the #36 Alpine to cross the line in 12th place, less than 30 seconds outside the top ten.

Charles Milesi: "It was a productive race, and our performance improved from Imola. Although the incidents made the race quite disjointed, we had a promising pace compared to the competition, and we were able to fight our way through the field while continuing to learn more about the tyres. It's now up to us to put what we've learnt to good use in our preparations for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where anything is possible."

Jules Gounon: "I had a blast in the car while gaining more experience this week. I felt better and better as my stints went on, and I tried not to make any mistakes in my battle for ninth place with the Peugeot. I want to thank the team for showing confidence in me while Ferdinand recovered. I wish every member of the team all the best at Le Mans."

Paul-Loup Chatin: "We had a strong weekend, showing some fine things at Spa. Both cars finished again, which is always important as we develop and prepare for Le Mans. We continued to gather data and experience at all levels, and the technical team again demonstrated its professionalism in a clean, error-free race. There's still a lot of work to do, but it was a good showing overall with our second points finish."

Matthieu Vaxiviere: "It was a positive weekend for the team as a whole. We have to be happy with this result in a race marked by a long interruption. Unfortunately, we had a slightly different strategy, and the red flag cost us a lap, which was very difficult to regain afterwards. Despite this slight frustration, it's satisfying to put in a clean race and accumulate new data heading to Le Mans."

Mick Schumacher: "We met our target with a clean race. Unfortunately, the red flag compromised our chances of a better result. Without it, points would have been within our grasp. We missed a bit of luck, but motorsport is like this. Nevertheless, we have many positive points to take before the next race at Le Mans, where everything must be perfect!"

Nicolas Lapierre: "It was an interesting race, with a much better pace than at Imola. We had a lot of on-track battles, which is always enjoyable. The red flag was a tad frustrating given our strategy, but we put in a promising performance in preparation for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which we'll focus on starting today." Source: Alpine

Disappointing round for BMW M Team WRT and BMW M Motorsport

Following strong performances at Imola, the aim was to challenge for a podium again at Spa-Francorchamps. However, the race proved challenging for both crews of the BMW M Hybrid V8s, and they were not able to make progress through the field. Consequently, car #15 finished in 11th place after six hours of racing, while car #20 ended up in 13th position.

Since BMW M Hybrid V8 was 10th at Lusail and 6th at Imola, together with the four points clinched by car #15 11th place, BMW M (21 points) is fourth in the FIA Hypercar World Endurance Manufacturers Championship, 2 points behind Alpine.

Raffaele Marciello (#15 BMW M Hybrid V8, 11th place Hypercar): “It has been a difficult race. We were fighting for points and were running in the top ten. Then unfortunately, I made a mistake and we got a penalty. That was quite unfortunate but let’s see how to improve and to do better next time.”

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Spa-Francorchamps.

René Rast (#20 BMW M Hybrid V8, 13th place Hypercar): “It was not a great day. Everything went wrong somehow. We got a lot of penalties and have always been kind of at the wrong end of everything. A technical issue, penalties, so overall no points today. We need to learn from that. I think that pace wise, we were in the mix. That is one positive at least but we just need to perform better and make less mistake and hopefully in the next race we will be better.” Source: BMW Group

Disappointing but unsurprising result for Peugeot Sport

After qualifying 13th and 15th, the PEUGEOT 9X8 2024 aimed to move back up the standings and above all, finish the Spa event in order to gather as much data as possible before the 24 Hours of Le Mans. M. Jensen and N. Müller in #93 PEUGEOT finished in 9th; L. Duval and P. Di Resta with #94 PEUGEOT 14th.

With the 4 points gained at Imola and the 6 points earned at Spa Peugeot Sport is 6th in the FIA Hypercar World Endurance Manufacturers Championship with 10 points.

Nico Müller (no. 93 PEUGEOT 9X8): “The race lasted a bit longer than expected, but I'm pleased for the fans that they got to see a proper end to the race. The atmosphere was incredible around the track! We had a good race and P10 was the best we could have hoped for, I think. I made a good start to the race. We didn't make any bad calls, but we perhaps weren't as fortunate as we could have been either. The car worked well and we’re getting to understand it better now, so that’s a big step forward. We have a lot of data to analyse for Le Mans.”

Paul Di Resta (no. 94 PEUGEOT 9X8): “I had an alarm so I had to come into the pits for a reset. Just four laps in and we were already a lap behind the leaders, so it was very difficult, like it was in the last two races as well. But you have to move on and look ahead to the next round, it’s the most important race of the year. Team Peugeot TotalEnergies is well prepared and we need to build on the momentum we had at Le Mans last year. The countdown is on, there’s just over a month to go now.” Source: Stellantis

Poor debut for Lamborghini

The Lamborghini SC63 scored 3 points so far in the FIA Hypercar World Endurance Manufacturers Championship. 2 in Qatar and 1 in Imola where it ended the race respectively 13th and 12th. In Spa, the SC63 driven by Andrea Caldarelli (replacing Edoardo Mortara), Mirko Bortolotti and Daniil Kvyat abandoned.

Cadillac eliminated for contention

A run for the podium came to an abrupt end with 1 hour, 47 minutes left when Earl Bamber was attempting to overtake the #99 Proton Competition Porsche 963 on the Kemmell Straight for third in the Hypercar running order, made contact with the #31 WRT BMW M4 GT3, eliminating the #2 Cadillac V-Series.R from contention. The race was immediately red-flagged.

With a hard fought 10th place (earning 2 points) at Imola and being disqualified at Qatar despite ending fourth, the DNF in Spa, the Cadillac driven by Alex Lynn and Earl Bamber is 8th in the FIA Hypercar World Endurance Manufacturers Championship.