Alpine have been a team shrouded in uncertainty throughout the 2024 season.
The French outfit have struggled in Formula 1 this year as they sit ninth in the constructors’ championship, with drivers Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon only managing to score 13 points thus far.
Alpine are embarking on their debut season in the World Endurance Championship, and they have had better fortunes with sports cars compared to open-wheelers.
The team are fourth in the manufacturers’ standings with their new A424 Hypercar, with the No. 36 car achieving Alpine’s first podium in the series with third at Fuji.
Despite the result, driver Mick Schumacher stressed Alpine still have to work on their pace as they strive to find consistency in the WEC.
Alpine are to ramp up testing for the 2025 WEC season with the Viry-Chatillon factory set to continue operation
A huge reason behind the team’s uncertainty is the situation surrounding their Viry-Chatillon factory in France and its future operations.
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It has been speculated that the team are debating shutting down their power unit programme in F1 ahead of the 2026 regulations at the factory, which has been building Grand Prix engines since 1979, with it being rumoured that Alpine will move to being a Mercedes customer team.
The news has been extremely unpopular with its employees, with several protests taking place and it has thrown the entire operation into chaos.
But speaking with Motorsport, vice president of motorsport and former F1 team principal Bruno Famin has said that ‘whatever happens’, the factory will continue to build engines for Alpine’s WEC programme for the foreseeable future, and that testing will be ramped up ahead of the 2025 season.
“The regulations limit the number of days you can test and the number of days depends if you are a manufacturer, but [also how many] customer [cars you have],” he said.
“Some competitors have quite a lot of customer cars and they are allowed to make more tests. They also have double programmes with IMSA and WEC.
“We go step by step and the goal for next year will be for sure to make the full use of all the quota in terms of the number of test days that we are going to have.”
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Alpine have not confirmed their drivers for the 2025 season
With the good news that the team’s WEC programme will still be going ahead, Alpine are yet to confirm their driver line-up for the upcoming season.
Schumacher, Nicolas Lapierre and Mathieu Vaxiviere have raced in all seven rounds in the No. 36 car so far, while in the No. 35, only Charles Milesi has competed in every round, with Paul-Loup Chatin, Ferdinand Habsburg and Jules Gounon appearing sporadically.
Schumacher’s future in the WEC has been left up in the air with the German’s desire still set on returning to F1. But with a comeback looking increasingly unlikely, Schumacher says his future will be decided in September as it looks more likely that he will remain with Alpine.
Nicolas Lapierre is considering retiring from the WEC at the end of the year. The 40-year-old, who has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the LMP2 class four times, is exploring other options, including roles outside of the car.