Alpine’s commitment to the FIA WEC will not be affected by any changes to the Formula 1 engine programme.
Bruno Famin, Alpine’s vice president of motorsport, said the Renault brand will continue to build and maintain engines for its A424 LMDh in Viry-Chatillon, France, for the foreseeable future.
Renault’s Viry factory has been building engines for Grand Prix racing since 1979, but the French manufacturer is debating whether to abandon the process altogether ahead of new 2026 regulations.
Although the decision is not expected before September 30, as per the company’s internal target, the prospect of Renault ceasing F1 engine production at Viry to transform Alpine into a customer team for Mercedes has not been welcomed by employees, who have staged several protests in recent weeks.
But “whatever happens” on the F1 side, the Viry factory will continue to play an important role for the Alpine team competing in the WEC, according to Famin.
“We are already using the facility for WEC engines. In 2025 we will continue with Formula 1 engines. We are using the structure, the people, the skills and the resources we have at Viry to support and develop the WEC programme and we will continue to do so in the future.”
The Alpine A424 is powered by a heavily modified version of Mecachrome’s 3.4-litre turbocharged V6 engine, also used in Formula 2. This engine is mated to a hybrid system common to all LMDh cars, supplied jointly by Bosch, Xtrac and Williams Advanced Engineering.
#35 Alpine Endurance Team Alpine A424: Jules Gounon, Ferdinand Habsburg-Lothringen, Charles Milesi
Photo credit: JEP / Motorsport Images
Further tests in 2025
Alpine has completed a limited amount of testing ahead of its return to the Hypercar class with the all-new A424 in 2024.
It was the only manufacturer in the category not to take part in a collective test in Austin in July, ahead of this month’s Lone Star Le Mans event, but Famin revealed that Alpine will step up testing in 2025 to use its full complement.
“The rules limit the number of days you can test, and the number of days depends on whether you are a manufacturer, but also on the number of customer cars. Some competitors have a lot of them and are allowed to do more. They also have dual programs with IMSA and WEC.”
“We are proceeding step by step and the goal for next year will certainly be to fully exploit all the quotas in terms of the number of test days that we will have available.”
#Alpine #Viry #headquarters #work #WEC
