Alpine’s World Endurance Championship Hypercar driver Nicolas Lapierre has detailed where the team must improve in order to compete for regular success in 2025.
The French team have suffered a tricky campaign so far this season, dealing with reliability issues within the Oreca-built A424.
The car is built on the basis of an LMP2 Oreca ‘next generation’ chassis and features a Formula 2 style V6 Mecachrome engine.
Nicolas Lapierre eager to ‘fight for top’ WEC positions in 2025
Alpine showed promise early on in the World Endurance Championship season, especially at the opening round in the Qatar 1812km with a seventh-placed finish for the number 35 car.
But since the early high, they have struggled to recapture such form and even sustained a double-DNF at the centrepiece 24 Hour of Le Mans race.
Driver of the number 36 car, Lapierre, has now detailed where the team needs to improve in order to compete at the top in 2025.
Speaking to Sportscar365, he said: “The competition is really tight, but obviously next year we want to fight to be in the front. We will be more ready with the car and the team operation, and the target will be to fight for the top positions.
“We know Toyota, Ferrari [and] Porsche are extremely strong and have a lot of experience, but we hope to fight with them for sure.
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“I think next year the car can be strong everywhere. The big step we need is the reliability, and making sure we can drive without problems.
“It’s a very complicated car, we need to make improvements on the systems and everything, and it takes a bit of time to understand every trick. But we have made some good steps this year already.”
What can Alpine achieve before the end of 2025?
With three races left in the 2024 season, Alpine are currently tied for the tag of ‘best of the rest’ and sit fourth in the manufacturers’ standings with 25 points.
That statistic is slightly misleading, however, with Ferrari in third place some 84 points ahead of them.
They will also be looking over their shoulders with BMW level on points with Alpine and Peugeot another five points behind in sixth.
Improvements are required for them to set themselves apart as the fourth-best outfit. But it could be too much of a challenge for them to achieve victories and regular podiums as soon as 2025.
As Lapierre mentioned, the experience they have gathered from this season will be crucial in the development of a stronger package for next year and beyond.
If they can continue to build on the platform they already have, then they could find themselves in a good position to return to the Hypercar podium for the first time since 2021.