Alpine looks to bounce back from their shortcomings in the Qatar 1812km. After a disappointing finish for the team in 13th and 14th Alpine is looking forward towards the 6 Hours of Imola in one months time. The team had high hopes coming into the opening race of the season. However, a variety of on track issues and bad luck left them exiting the weekend with a number of question marks. As the team embarks on their second season in the World Endurance Championship with the A424 team management is looking forward to applying what the team has learned to Imola next month.
Philippe Sinault, Team Principal Alpine Endurance Team
“It was a complicated first race. The start was very good in terms of the pace set by our drivers and tyre degradation. The #35 suffered a puncture and then a collision in traffic, which caused it to drop down the order. Despite this, it managed to maintain a similar pace to the competition, although down a lap. The performance of the #36 car was affected in the back half of the race by damage. Nevertheless, the potential is there, and we must improve between now and Imola.”
Nicolas Lapierre, Sporting Director Alpine Endurance Team
“First of all, I want to thank the drivers for the job they did on the track. The championship is very competitive, the competition is fierce, and if you’re not in the right window, you quickly find yourself in a tough situation. We will learn from this race and use the Sunday test day here and the tests planned before Imola to work on it. We will try to understand how to get the most of the tyres as that will be one of the keys this season. I saw many positive things over the two weeks, but we still have work to do between now and the next race at Imola.”
It’s clear the team has some performance hurdles to overcome as they were well off of the pace of the race winning around 1.2 seconds behind. The front of the hypercar field is led by Ferrari as it currently stands. Ferrari finished the Qatar 1812km 1-2-3 and will look to carry that momentum as a manufacturer into their home race at Imola. Alpine has its work cut out for them in the coming weeks to close the performance gap.