🇫🇷 Cet article est également disponible en français : Lire en français
Texas, 6 September 2026. It took until round five of the season — and a 36-degree evening on the Circuit of the Americas tarmac — for Alpine Endurance Team to finally taste champagne.
Third with the #35, fifth with the #36: on paper, the weekend’s ledger reads superbly, even if it carries a faint aftertaste of what might have been. For a lap and eleven hundredths, the Alpine A424 #35 was running second on the road. A five-second penalty for an unsafe release at the final pit stop decided otherwise.
A Hyperpole for the record books
To understand the potential Alpine showed this weekend, you have to look back to the day before. On Saturday afternoon, Hyperpole at the Lone Star Le Mans produced one of the tightest qualifying sessions the WEC has seen in 106 races: four cars, four different manufacturers, separated by five hundredths of a second. Antonio Giovinazzi had claimed pole in the #51 Ferrari with a 1m52.445s — exactly matching Jack Aitken’s time in the #38 Cadillac, with the Italian awarded top spot simply for setting his lap first.
Splitting the two was Charles Milesi. The Frenchman, often decisive in the one-lap discipline this season, put the #35 third with a 1m52.474s, just 29 thousandths off pole. Harry Tincknell’s Aston Martin #007 rounded out that quartet 50 thousandths off Giovinazzi. Victor Martins, in his first full Hypercar season, underlined the French manufacturer’s good form by qualifying the #36 sixth, four tenths back.
None of this was down to luck. The previous day, in FP3, both A424s had deliberately held back — twelfth and fourteenth fastest, over a second off the pace — to focus on long-stint simulations and Michelin tyre management in already stifling heat. It’s become something of an Alpine trademark this season: sacrifice Saturday morning’s lap time to leave more in reserve for qualifying.
A race full of twists under the Texas heat
The start, delayed by two extra formation laps to let a track soaked by the remnants of Tropical Storm Edouard dry out, quickly swung in Ferrari’s favour, then Cadillac’s. Ferdinand Habsburg, starting third in the #35, lost the position on the very first timed lap to Nicklas Nielsen, who had climbed from fifth on the grid. Diverging early pit strategies then reshuffled the order: after one hour, Giovinazzi led from Aitken, Nielsen and Habsburg.
By half-distance, Alpine had taken control of the conventional-strategy group, António Félix da Costa’s #35 climbing to second behind the #38 Cadillac just before a Safety Car bunched the field for grass debris torn up at the exit of Turn 20. At the restart, it was Toyota who set the pace: Nyck de Vries strung together three passes at Turn 1 to take the lead, before Kazuki Kobayashi held off pressure from both Alpines for close to ninety minutes.
The #36, meanwhile, paid a heavy price for a routine stop badly timed against a Virtual Safety Car shortly after half-distance, dropping it out of contention for the leading positions. It would only return to the top five thanks to Victor Martins’ final stint, in which he picked off Kevin Magnussen’s BMW #15, Will Stevens’ Cadillac #12 and Nolan Jaubert’s Genesis #17 in quick succession during the closing hour.
The turning point: the #7 Toyota’s hydraulic failure
With around twelve minutes left on the clock, the race turned on its head in an instant. Nyck de Vries, who had led since starting his stint in the fourth hour, suddenly lost hydraulic pressure in the #7 Toyota: the power steering failed, forcing him to crawl back to the garage, where the team retired the car for good. Another Austin heartbreak for the Japanese manufacturer, still without a win at this track after nine attempts. “It’s a very sad end to a great day,” de Vries admitted afterwards. “We gave it everything and executed well, but this is a technical sport, and it let us down today.”
Charles Milesi, now leading in the #35, held on for a full lap before yielding. Caught out by backmarkers in traffic, he let Nicolas Nielsen through around the outside with roughly half an hour left — an overtake dictated by circumstance rather than any mistake behind the wheel. Nielsen inherited the lead when the Toyota retired and held it to the chequered flag. “We were settling for second, we were there, and we got lucky that the Toyota had a problem,” he summed up matter-of-factly, well aware of the slice of fortune behind the win.
The stewards nonetheless found the #35 guilty of an unsafe release at its final pit stop: a five-second penalty, applied to the final classification. That handed Jack Aitken second place for Cadillac, dropping Alpine to the bottom step — but a podium finish all the same, with 4.471 seconds separating the winner from the #38 Cadillac.
Hypercar classification (167 laps)
| Pos. | No. | Team | Drivers | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 50 | Ferrari AF Corse | Fuoco / Molina / Nielsen | 6:00:07.219 |
| 2 | 38 | Cadillac Hertz Team Jota | Bamber / Bourdais / Aitken | +4.471 s |
| 3 | 35 | Alpine Endurance Team | da Costa / Milesi / Habsburg | +6.116 s |
| 4 | 007 | Aston Martin THOR | Tincknell / Gamble / Gunn | +9.045 s |
| 5 | 36 | Alpine Endurance Team | Makowiecki / Gounon / Martins | +10.885 s |
| 6 | 8 | Toyota Racing | Buemi / Hartley / Hirakawa | +21.389 s |
| 17 | 7 | Toyota Racing | Conway / Kobayashi / de Vries | +6 laps (retired) |
A consistency that’s starting to pay off
What matters most: after four rounds without a podium, Alpine leaves Austin with 56 points in the manufacturers’ championship (41 before the race, plus 15 for third place), still fifth but now just four points behind Aston Martin — a battle for that position that has tightened considerably with three rounds left. The paddock praised the French team’s overall performance, while the penalty remains, unsurprisingly, the one sore point in an otherwise strong weekend.
There’s a certain statistical justice to this result. Both A424s completed all 167 laps of the race at the winner’s average pace — a rare feat of consistency on a circuit as punishing on tyres as Austin, hit hard by the heat and lingering humidity from Storm Edouard. Milesi, decisive in qualifying, was every bit as decisive in the race, holding off Nielsen for the best part of a lap before finally giving way. Martins, in his first full season at the top of the Hypercar tree, delivered one of the finest stints of his young career.
Three rounds remain on the calendar — Fuji on 27 September, then Barcelona and Monza. Alpine Endurance Team heads into this final sprint with a belief, at last borne out by results, that the A424 can fight at the front in any conditions. All that’s left is to turn that belief into victory, before the Hypercar era draws its final curtain for the French manufacturer.
In their own words
Car #35 crew
António Félix da Costa
“This is my first podium with Alpine, but also my first in Hypercar, which makes it really special. We were in the fight all race long, and even though the Safety Car periods affected our strategy, this podium gives us great momentum heading into the final three rounds.”
Charles Milesi
“We put together a really solid race and the team made good strategic calls. It’s satisfying to finally turn our level of performance into a podium and score big points with both cars. Everyone deserves this result. Now it’s up to us to keep this up for the rest of the season.”
Ferdinand Habsburg
“It’s an honour and a pleasure to race for this team. Alpine gave us a reliable, competitive car, and it was fantastic to be fighting at the front. A huge thank you to the engineers and mechanics for their calls and their work. They gave us the chance to finish on the overall podium, and I’m proud to share this result with them.”
Car #36 crew
Frédéric Makowiecki
“We’ve finally turned our performance into a big haul of points. Fifth place doesn’t reflect everything the car was capable of today, but the pace was clearly there. We’ll look at how we can be sharper still in our execution and build on this progress in the races to come.”
Jules Gounon
“The timing of that last caution period didn’t work in our favour, but we kept fighting. Victor’s recovery drive completed an important result for the team, with both our cars inside the top five. It’s a great reward for all the work that’s gone on behind the scenes.”
Victor Martins
“Fred and Jules put in solid, clean stints to keep us in the fight. That last caution period dropped us back to twelfth, but the car was extremely quick on the final stint and I was able to climb back up to fifth. The closing stages were intense, and we managed to show what we’re capable of.”
Management
Yann Paranthoën, Chief Engineer, Alpine Endurance Team
“Both cars’ race pace was very solid. We’ve got a few operational details to review, but the #36’s recovery from twelfth to fifth showed just how competitive the A424 is, while the #35 turned its speed into a well-earned podium.”
Nicolas Lapierre, Sporting Director, Alpine Endurance Team
“Getting both our cars into the top five is an excellent result for the team, and it’s great to be back on the podium. The race was demanding strategically, the drivers did an excellent job, and the car performed well across all six hours. We can take a lot of confidence away from Austin.”
Philippe Sinault, Team Principal, Alpine Endurance Team
“This is our best overall result since the start of the programme: our first podium of the season and both cars inside the top five. It rewards the whole team’s commitment and delivers on the target we set ourselves ahead of Austin. Charles was solid in securing the podium, and Victor produced a fantastic final stint. We had the pace to aim even higher, which only strengthens our resolve heading into Fuji.”
Source: Alpine Endurance Team
