Alpine may have scored its breakthrough World Endurance Championship win in September at the 2025 Fuji 6 Hours, but the A424 hypercar is undergoing significant changes over the off-season.
Why the update, and what exactly is being modified? Here is everything you need to know, with pictures to illustrate what we've uncovered.
A 2025 summary
We previously took an in-depth look at Alpine's Endurance programme following the A424's maiden victory in Japan. The LMDh wrapped up the season with three podiums including one victory, yet only sixth place in the manufacturers' standings.
"We know that there were too many average results to hope for a better championship finish" Alpine vice president of motorsport Bruno Famin explained. "Our goal for next season will be to keep improving and being more consistent in our performance."
The biggest low point was the Le Mans 24 Hours, where Alpine was never a factor and limped home ninth and tenth, far from any meaningful contention.
Why the A424 needs an update
During the 2024–25 off-season, Alpine used its first Evo Joker. The target was to address reliability issues that had led to both cars retiring from Le Mans. It included upgrades to the crankshaft, valves, and turbo.
This time, the Evo Joker is being deployed on the aerodynamic package.
"We opted for a low-drag, low-downforce car for obvious reasons linked to the Le Mans track," Bruno Famin told The Race.
"But while it’s always been said that the Le Mans BoP is essentially built on homologation parameters, last year the new two-stage BoP was added to equalise top speeds."
That was bad news for manufacturers who committed to a Le Mans-optimised aero concept, since the system does not compensate by adding downforce.
"We did receive an increase in low-speed power in exchange," Famin continued. "But when your car generates little downforce, it's difficult to exploit that extra power. So we need to reposition our car within the aero window defined by the regulations, given that the regulatory philosophy in use today is different from when we homologated the car."
Visually, the updates are subtle. At the rear, Alpine has removed the small gurneys (1) and deleted the diffuser fences (2).
At the front, a bare carbonfibre nose hints really likely at a revised splitter (3). The diveplanes (4) have also been trimmed down.
The testing plan
The 2026-spec A424 turned its first laps at the Bahrain International Circuit four days after the 2025 WEC finale. A second test followed at Paul Ricard on December 4-5, including both daytime and night running, with Frédéric Makowiecki and Jules Gounon at the wheel.
Charles Milesi was in Malaysia preparing for the Asian Le Mans Series, and Antonio Felix da Costa was in Brazil for the opening round of the 2025-26 Formula E season.
This session was critical, serving as the final opportunity to validate the package before the car heads to the Windshear windtunnel in North Carolina for its homologation run on December 17-18.
Expect another test before the 2026 WEC prologue at Lusail on March 22-23, shortly before the season-opening Qatar 1812km on March 28.
What about the team?
Last week's test at Paul Ricard also doubled as an onboarding session for new personnel. Alpine has recruited new performance engineers and appointed a new race engineer for the #35 car: David Ladouce joins from Porsche Penske Motorsport, where he worked on the #5 963.
All of them will report to Fabrice Roussel, the new technical director of Alpine Endurance Team, who made his debut with the squad during the Bahrain 8 Hours in early November.
On the driver front, Mick Schumacher has departed for IndyCar and Paul-Loup Chatin has signed with Genesis Magma Racing. In their place, Alpine has brought in da Costa and, most likely, Williams Formula 1 reserve Victor Martins, the 2022 Formula 3 champion.
Images courtesy of © Passion Motors
