Alpine will field an unchanged driver line-up for its Hypercar entry in the 2022 FIA World Endurance Championship.
Similarly to the 2021 campaign, the team’s #36 Alpine A480-Gibson will be driven by Matthieu Vaxiviere, Nicolas Lapierre and Andre Negrao, who have all been retained.
Last year, the French manufacturer was a consistent podium presence with its rebadged, ORECA-built grandfathered LMP1 car, finishing second or third during each of the six championship rounds.
Despite that, it was regularly bested by the two hybrid-powered Hypercars from Toyota. It put in some strong challenges against the Japanese heavyweight, notably starting from pole position in Portimao but Toyota took a clean sweep of race wins in 2021.
For 2022, they will once again face off against Toyota, as well as returning effort from Glickenhaus and the debuting Peugeot factory LMH programme.
“As we enter our tenth year with Alpine, it was important for us to rely on the same trio to drive the A480 in the Hypercar category,” said team principal Philippe Sinault. “André, Matthieu and Nicolas are really embodying this project. They, like us, have done everything to continue our collaboration this year.”
“We already managed to find a balanced operation with excellent interpersonal relationships, two key factors for success in Endurance. They are fuelled with the spirit of our team and this is an ideal situation for a team as it gives us a lot of serenity and a fertile foundation for our next challenges.
“The trust is already established, which will also save us a lot of time. At the same time, the off-season was very short, but we worked hard to improve our package. With the arrival of new competitors in the category, the technical elements will likely evolve and we have done a huge amount of work to have an even better season than last year.
“We have to be ambitious in the elite category and we are doing our best every day to live up to this prestigious and exciting challenge.”
The 2022 season is set to be Alpine’s final year with the ex-Rebellion car, as grandfathered cars will not be eligible once the new generation of LMDh cars arrives in 2023.
Alpine currently has an LMDh programme under development in partnership with ORECA. That car will debut in 2024 and it is currently unclear what Alpine will do once it is no longer able to race the A480.
