Alpine Endurance Team leaves the 6 Hours of Barcelona with eighth place for Jules Gounon and Victor Martins, tenth for Charles Milesi and Ferdinand Habsburg, and the feeling that a much stronger result slipped away. Following consecutive podiums at Austin and Fuji, the Alpine A424 had again looked comfortable around the Catalan circuit. But a first-corner collision for the No. 35, followed by a slow puncture for the No. 36, undermined the French team’s ambitions.

There are few things more exasperating in endurance racing than seeing a result unravel just when the hard work appears to have been done. In Barcelona, Alpine had put its No. 36 A424 in contention for a top-five finish despite fierce competition and changing weather. The engineers had offset the pit-stop strategy, while the drivers made the most of clear laps to recover ground. Then, late in the race, the right-rear tyre began losing pressure. An extra stop cost several places, leaving Jules Gounon and Victor Martins eighth at the flag.

The sister No. 35 had no chance to build its race with the same patience. Ferdinand Habsburg ended up in the gravel at the very first corner after contact with Will Stevens’s Cadillac. He and Charles Milesi then spent the afternoon trying to undo the damage caused by an incident they could well have done without. They finished tenth.

The outcome was particularly disappointing given that Alpine Endurance Team had arrived in Catalonia on the back of two successive podiums. Three weeks earlier at Fuji Speedway, the No. 36 had finished second, just 0.591 seconds behind the winning Toyota, while the No. 35 came home fourth. Those performances lent weight to the progress seen since Austin. Barcelona, however, presented a different challenge, not least a circuit notoriously demanding on tyres.

Free practice – Friday 16 October: Alpine Endurance Team gets reacquainted with Barcelona

The weekend began with an unusual exercise in rediscovery. Alpine knew Barcelona from its A424 development testing in 2023, but the car had never raced there in the World Endurance Championship.

Three years had passed since those early runs. In the meantime, the prototype had accumulated mileage, updates and the lessons of two full seasons of competition. The old data still had value, but the priority was to establish how the current A424 would behave on a circuit whose long, fast corners place particularly heavy demands on its tyres.

Friday’s two free-practice sessions, scheduled for 11.30am and 4.30pm, were therefore devoted largely to race preparation.

Tyre selection was central to that work. The engineers had to weigh the soft and medium compounds against track temperatures and the degradation expected over the course of a stint.

Barcelona is unforgiving of an ill-judged compromise. Through its long corners, the tyre remains under load for several seconds, raising its temperature and potentially accelerating wear. A set-up that delivers over one flying lap may behave very differently after twenty laps. Equally, a car tuned to protect its tyres can lose precision through changes of direction or time on corner exit.

Alpine needed a set-up with a sufficiently broad operating window to cope with different conditions without giving away speed.

The weather added another unknown. Practice took place in dry conditions, but rain was forecast for Sunday. Friday’s findings would not necessarily carry over to the opening stints of the race.

Qualifying – Saturday 17 October: Both Alpine A424s qualify inside the top seven

Saturday’s third free-practice session, held around midday, gave Alpine one final opportunity to fine-tune its set-up before Hypercar qualifying, scheduled to begin at 3.40pm.

The focus had now shifted from maintaining consistent pace over a long run to extracting everything from the tyres over a single flying lap. The two demands are not quite the same: some cars that look after their tyres particularly well over a full stint struggle to generate maximum grip immediately.

Both Alpines delivered convincing performances.

Charles Milesi and Ferdinand Habsburg put the No. 35 fourth with a lap of 1m30.722s. Jules Gounon and Victor Martins qualified seventh in the No. 36, recording a 1m30.814s.

Just 92 thousandths of a second separated the two A424s, with the No. 36 0.648 seconds off the pole position time set by the No. 17 Genesis GMR-001 of André Lotterer, Pipo Derani and Mathys Jaubert.

Those margins were worth noting. Around a circuit more than four and a half kilometres long, less than a tenth separated the two French prototypes despite their different driver pairings and driving styles. It suggested that Alpine had found a reasonably consistent set-up across both cars, although qualifying pace alone can never tell the whole story of a six-hour race.

More importantly, fourth place gave the No. 35 a promising starting position. Habsburg had every reason to hope he could stay in touch with the leading group, while Gounon had room to make progress from seventh in the No. 36.

The outstanding question was how the Alpines would perform on a wet track. The answer came the following day, with very different fortunes for the two crews.

Race – Sunday 18 October: rain disrupts the start of the 6 Hours of Barcelona

The forecast rain arrived before the start of the 6 Hours of Barcelona. The track was wet enough to require several additional formation laps before race control released the field.

By midday, conditions bore little resemblance to those seen in qualifying.

Wet-weather tyres had to cope with asphalt offering different levels of grip from one racing line to another, while spray reduced visibility behind other prototypes. Drivers also knew the track could dry quickly, making the opening tyre choices and subsequent stops especially difficult to judge.

The opening corner immediately demonstrated the risks.

At the front, Daniel Juncadella, starting third in the No. 19 Genesis, took the lead from team-mate André Lotterer. Further back, Ferdinand Habsburg was far less fortunate.

Will Stevens’s No. 12 Cadillac V-Series.R made contact with the No. 35 Alpine, spinning the French prototype into the gravel. The stewards held the Cadillac driver responsible and handed him a ten-second penalty.

For Habsburg, the collision wiped out the benefit of Saturday’s fourth-place qualifying result in a matter of moments.

The Austrian rejoined well behind his direct rivals. He now faced a recovery drive through traffic on a still-treacherous track, without the strategic freedom that comes from running near the front.

Jules Gounon, meanwhile, had avoided trouble. The No. 36 remained among the cars capable of fighting for a strong finish, alongside the Cadillacs, Ferraris and Peugeots.

The two Alpines were now running very different races: the No. 35 was trying to salvage what it could after the incident, while the No. 36 still had most of its opportunities intact.

Race – Opening stints: Gounon keeps the No. 36 in contention as Habsburg fights back

During the opening stints, Jules Gounon focused on maintaining a consistent pace without compromising the rest of the race.

On a wet track, tyre management demands constant attention. As the asphalt dries, wet-weather tyres can quickly overheat on sections with no standing water. Drivers then seek out damp patches to cool the rubber while judging when a switch to slicks will become worthwhile.

The Frenchman came through that phase without significant trouble, keeping the No. 36 A424 in the chasing group behind the leaders.

Approaching the third hour, the Alpine was running sixth as teams watched the remaining moisture disappear from the circuit. The move to slick tyres had become one of the race’s key strategic decisions.

In the No. 35, Habsburg and Milesi were still dealing with the consequences of the opening contact. The pace was not entirely lacking, but recovering positions was proving difficult.

After the finish, Habsburg explained that he had felt comfortable in the wet but struggled more as the track dried. That change in the car’s behaviour made it harder for him to regain ground.

“We will never know how the race might have unfolded without that incident.”

Ferdinand Habsburg

Charles Milesi shared the frustration. After fourth place in Japan, the crew had hoped to extend its run of strong results, but it now had little realistic chance of reaching the leading positions.

After Barcelona, Monza offers the Alpine A424 one final test

The championship resumes at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza from 6 to 8 November, where Alpine will contest the final round of its 2026 season.

The Italian circuit is familiar territory for Philippe Sinault’s team. In 2022, the Alpine A480 won the 6 Hours of Monza with Nicolas Lapierre, André Negrão and Matthieu Vaxivière. That car was very different from today’s A424, but the victory remains an important memory for the French outfit.

Monza will also present technical demands quite unlike those encountered in Catalonia.

The long straights call for low aerodynamic drag, while the heavy braking zones before the chicanes demand stability as the driver sheds speed rapidly. Traction out of slow corners and the car’s behaviour through the fast Lesmo bends and Parabolica will also influence set-up choices.

Alpine will therefore have to revisit part of its set-up work. The performances at Fuji and Barcelona provide useful reference points, but they cannot predict the competitive order at the Lombardy circuit.

In the manufacturers’ standings, Toyota now has 212 points and has secured the world title. Alpine lies fifth on 104 points, fourteen behind fourth-placed Cadillac. The French team therefore still has a championship target, although its Barcelona result did little to close the gap.

After a season in which the A424 has sometimes lacked consistency, the recent races have shown tangible progress. The podium finishes at Austin and Fuji were not isolated results achieved purely through favourable circumstances. Despite its disappointing outcome, Barcelona confirmed that the car could maintain competitive pace across several stints and benefit from a well-executed strategy.

That is still not enough to match the consistency of the strongest teams. Toyota demonstrated on Sunday what it means to control a race from start to finish, with two cars capable of sustaining a strong pace and managing their tyres all the way to the flag.

For Alpine, the technical progress is evident, but it has not translated consistently into results. The A424 now appears to have more to offer than some of its finishing positions suggest.

In Barcelona, the No. 36 could have finished higher. The No. 35 at least deserved the chance to defend its fourth place on the grid. Neither crew achieved what it had hoped for.

Monza cannot undo those six frustrating hours in Catalonia. But a strong final race would allow Alpine to end the year with a result more representative of what its two A424s have shown since Austin.

What they said

No. 35 crew

Charles Milesi

“It was an unfortunate race. We were caught up in a collision at the very first corner, which compromised our chances of scoring big points. We had the pace, but after that incident we could no longer fight for the result we had hoped for.”

Ferdinand Habsburg

“I’m very disappointed with today’s result. Getting caught up in a collision at the start was frustrating because there was nothing I could do to avoid it. We’ll never know how the race might have unfolded without that incident. I would have liked to do better, both for the team and for myself. Everything was going well in the wet, but as the track dried I struggled to find my rhythm. We still leave with one point, and our focus now turns to the next race.”

No. 36 crew

Jules Gounon

“I’m disappointed with the result because I think fifth place was possible, but a slow puncture late in the race cost us that opportunity. It’s a frustrating finishing position after fighting throughout the race. Thanks to the team for all their hard work. Both our cars finished in the points, but the result is clearly below our expectations.”

Victor Martins

“We knew it would be a difficult race, but I think we did a good job. Jules drove an excellent opening stint, staying out of trouble while fighting in tricky conditions. We then adopted a different strategy to make the most of our pace and manage the traffic. A top-five finish, or even better, was within reach. Unfortunately, a right-rear puncture late in the race compromised that opportunity and we finished eighth. It’s frustrating to lose that result so close to the finish.”

Team management

Nicolas Lapierre, Sporting Director, Alpine Endurance Team

“It was a very difficult day. The No. 35 was hit in the opening corners, which immediately compromised its race. We had reasonable pace in tricky conditions, and the No. 36 was fighting for a top-five finish before a tyre problem late in the race denied us that opportunity. It’s a disappointing result.”

Philippe Sinault, Team Principal, Alpine Endurance Team

“We knew Barcelona would be a demanding challenge. The team worked hard to understand the car’s behaviour and the tyres. Fourth and seventh places in qualifying rewarded that preparation. The race was more difficult: the No. 35’s chances were compromised by contact at the start, while the No. 36 was fighting for a top-five finish before a loss of tyre pressure forced us to make an additional stop. The result reflects neither our potential nor the team’s efforts, but it does nothing to diminish our determination to finish the season on a high at Monza.”

Weekend results – 2026 WEC 6 Hours of Barcelona

Alpine Endurance Team at a glance: free practice, qualifying and race

Final race classification – Hypercar

2026 FIA World Endurance Championship – Hypercar manufacturers

Alpine Endurance Team sits fifth in the manufacturers’ championship on 104 points, 14 behind Cadillac, heading into the season finale at Monza on 6–8 November 2026.

Source: Alpine Endurance Team