Alpine Showed A424’s “Great Potential” in Qualifying

Alpine showed the “great potential” of its A424 LMDh contender by making the cut for Hyperpole for this week’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, according to Paul-Loup Chatin.

The French manufacturer was arguably the surprise of Wednesday night’s Qualifying Practice as Chatin went fourth-fastest in the No. 35 Alpine, only 0.407 seconds away from the top time set by the BMW of Dries Vanthoor.

Nicolas Lapierre showed similar potential as he qualified ninth in the sister No. 36 car, only just missing out on Hyperpole, and only after an air intake problem prevented him from improving at the end of the session.

Reflecting on the lap that guarantees the No. 35 Alpine a place in the top eight of the starting grid for Saturday’s FIA World Endurance Championship blue riband, Chatin said he wasn’t entirely surprised to turn in such a competitive lap.

“Of course we are very happy to be in Hyperpole,” said Chatin. “It’s just the result of the hard work of all the team since the car first went on track.

“We know the team worked very hard to give us the best car possible for Le Mans, and we showed the car has strong potential.

“At Le Mans in qualifying you always have to be a bit lucky to have a good slipstream at the right time, and that’s what I got thanks to Nico [Lapierre].

“Now of course we have Hyperpole, but we need to be focused on the race because that’s what matters in the end.

“It’s really good for the team because they deserve it.”

On Alpine getting two cars into the top 10 of qualifying, Lapierre added: “It’s brilliant. Since we arrived here we’ve had a good level of performance, which is good news.

“We knew when we ran at other tracks that this track would suit our car quite well, but it’s nice to confirm it. We have a good top speed, we are quite good in high-speed corners.

“That said, we know that the most difficult part is yet to come and we are not 100 percent confident we can have a trouble-free race.”

Lapierre explained that his qualifying effort was curtailed when he suffered the same ‘butterfly’ issue with the air intake that caused the No. 35 Alpine to stop on-track during Free Practice 1 earlier in the day.

“When you have two problems in the same area, for sure it’s a concern!” he admitted. “But we have a lot of people involved now, a lot of strength in the team, so I hope we can sort this out for this weekend.”

Team principal Philippe Sinault meanwhile insisted that Alpine’s goals for the race have not been affected by its better-than-expected qualifying, with a finish still its principal objective for its Hypercar debut.

“If we make a good result with no mistakes and no technical issues, then I think we can achieve a good result,” he said. “But it would be a mistake to start thinking about the podium. The main target is to finish the race.”

Lapierre echoed Sinault’s opinion when asked by Sportscar365 about Alpine’s goals for the race, saying: “We have to stay on the same line. I’m the first one who wants to race and get a good result. If there’s an opportunity, we will take it.

“But first of all we need to learn this year; even if the pace is good, we are still in a learning year and we are fighting some of the biggest manufacturers in the world.

“We have to stay humble, not get overexcited, take it lap-by-lap and see where it brings us.”