Lapierre Unfazed by Mecachrome Engine’s Reliability Record

Nicolas Lapierre says he has no concerns about the reliability record of the Mecachrome engine that will power Alpine’s FIA World Endurance Championship challenger.

Alpine has selected the Mecachrome V634, a turbocharged V6, as the base for the engine that sits at the heart of its Oreca-chassised A424 LMDh that is set for its competitive debut in the Qatar 1812km WEC season opener in early March.

The Mecachrome V634 is best known as the engine that powers the FIA Formula 2 and Formula 3 championships, and is somewhat infamous in single-seater circles owing to its chequered record of reliability since its 2016 introduction.

It also has a brief history of use in sports car racing, powering the Ginetta G60-LT-P1 LMP1 car for the early part of the 2018-19 WEC superseason before the car was refitted with an AER power unit for the 2019-20 campaign.

Asked for his thoughts on the Mecachrome engine, Lapierre highlighted the fact it had been “drastically modified” by Alpine’s team at Viry-Chatillon in France – where Renault’s Formula 1 power units are also produced – for its reintroduction in the WEC.

“It has been a lot of work to adapt this engine to endurance racing,” said Lapierre. “The structure is the same, but everything inside has been changed. 

“One of the strengths of Alpine is that there are a lot of engine benches in Viry-Chatillon and I can assure you the engine was running a lot on the bench. 

“Also, we have been able to run 30 hours in a row in the simulation (testing). On the engine side, we are quite ok. 

“Le Mans is special as you know, it’s a different track, different conditions, but so far so good for this engine.”

Alpine’s A424 challenger will be launched in its full livery on Feb. 7 alongside the French manufacturer’s latest F1 car at its grand prix racing factory in Enstone in the UK.

Lapierre said he hopes that Alpine’s extensive knowledge of hybrid F1 power trains can also help the manufacturer with its WEC effort.

“Alpine is one of the few teams doing both these championships, which are very high level, and of course we try to find synergies, mainly on the power train, the hybrid system and the (internal combustion) engine,” said Lapierre.

“The team from Alpine Racing in Viry-Chatillon are working hard on the Hypercar project as well. We’ll try to use the knowledge inside Alpine Racing to help us move as fast as possible in this project.”

While expressing his satisfaction with how Alpine’s private testing program has gone so far, Lapierre was also eager to play down expectations for the A424 in its first season up against the heavyweights of WEC’s top Hypercar class. 

“We have to be humble,” said the French driver. “For sure the first year is not gonna be easy. Most of the tests we did, we were alone on track. 

“It’s hard to know our pace, and LMDh never won a race yet as well, so we have to take this into consideration. 

“Of course in the medium-term we want to be competitive, we want to fight for wins, but the first year will be tough. We know the level of competition is extremely high, so we have no expectations for the first season.”