Alpine Working to Unlock Pace by Resolving Braking Issue

Alpine driver Charles Milesi says the manufacturer is working hard to address a braking issue that he says has left the Alpine A424 struggling for consistency in the FIA World Endurance Championship.

The French brand currently sits fourth in the manufacturers’ standings with a best result so far this year of fourth at the Imola opener.

The braking problems were particularly apparent during the previous event at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where Milesi says Alpine was left in “no-man’s land” as it struggled to fight at the front en route to finishing sixth but was comfortably ahead of brands like Genesis, Aston Martin and Peugeot at the back of the Hypercar division.

When asked about the areas Alpine is looking to improve, Milesi told Sportscar365: “Just trying to optimize the systems — we had quite a bit of issues with the brakes since the beginning of the program and in Le Mans that was our main concern during the race as the brakes were a bit inconsistent.

“That’s one of the main things we’re trying to improve every race.

“We managed to improve it but it’s not always easy because this car is so sensitive to different aspects: to different track layouts, the traffic.

“We’re still trying with the systems to improve it — we can protect the brakes on the management to make things better but it’s not something easy as this parameter is one of the trickiest of the car’s.

“If we can improve it and make it a bit more stable, it would make us gain consistency in lap time.”

Milesi said it was difficult to pinpoint exactly how much time was being lost at Le Mans in the braking zones because of the inconsistency but said he did have to “back off a bit” at times.

“In Le Mans it’s a long track so it can make half a second or six tenths difference easily,” he explained.

“Also if you don’t have the consistency, you can try to bring a bit more speed, but you can lose the car and because of that you can lose an extra two tenths in one corner.

“I’m not quite sure we would’ve been able to fight for the top three [without the trouble] but at least be a bit closer.

“With the race that we made on our car where we didn’t make any mistakes we were probably looking at more like a top-five finish.”

There is continued uncertainty about which venues the WEC will visit at the end of the season amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East but Milesi said that, regardless of where the series competes, it will be “really important” for Alpine to make braking improvements to unlock further pace.

Milesi said that with the manufacturers’ battle being quite tight “there are still some good things to get until the end of the year” and it is therefore worth spending the time to improve the A424.

Nevertheless, he does not feel this weekend’s Sao Paulo event will be the strongest for Alpine even with the Evo package it introduced for this year.

“Last year we were a bit frustrated here because it was probably the worst track for our car,” Milesi said of Interlagos.

“We know that here the starting position is quite important so this will be the key. Last year we weren’t looking that good in quali so that will be one thing to look at to see if we improve this aspect.”