Alpine prepares for final WEC season with newly revealed A424 Hypercar
Alpine’s A424 hypercar will race in its final season of the 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC), with the French team hoping to challenge at the top of the field in its swansong year.
The Renault-owned brand has been in the WEC since 2024, only winning one race at the 2025 6 Hours of Fuji. Focus will now shift to improving its efforts in Formula 1, including the transformation of the Viry-Chatillon engine facility, renamed Alpine Tech. In 2024, Alpine announced its intentions to switch to Mercedes engines for 2026 until at least the end of 2030.
The Alpine Endurance Team viewed its debut season for the A424 hypercar in 2024 as a ‘learning season’, and was expected to push on in 2025. The team unveiled its 2026 iteration of the A424, dressed in a French flag livery, and will head into the season with new aerodynamic upgrades. Whether the changes will be enough to make an impact this season remains to be seen.
Portuguese driver António Félix da Costa joins Austrian Ferdinand Habsburg and Frenchman Charles Milesi in the #35 Alpine A424
Jules Gounon, Frédéric Makowiecki and endurance racing newcomer Victor Martins are part of an all-French crew in the #36 sister car
The 2026 WEC season begins with a prologue in Qatar on March 22 and 23, before the first of eight rounds takes place in the Gulf state a week later.
2026 FIA World Endurance Championship Calendar
Round 1 - Qatar (Qatar 1812km) - March 28
Round 2 - Italy (6 Hours of Imola) - April 19
Round 3 - Belgium (6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps) - May 9
Round 4 - France (24 Hours of Le Mans) - June 13-14
Round 5 - Brazil (6 Hours of Sao Paulo) - July 12
Round 6 - USA (Lone Star Le Mans) - September 6
Round 7 - Japan (6 Hours of Fuji) - September 27
Round 8 - Bahrain (8 Hours of Bahrain) - November 7
words: Mike Booth
pictures: Alpine