The highlight of the European endurance-racing season will be the Le Mans 24 Hours where a French team is bound to be a crowd favorite now that Peugeot has withdrawn from racing.
Last November, Renault said it will revive the long defunct Alpine brand with the creation of the Société des Automobiles Alpine Caterham. While the first new Alpine is expected go on sale in 2016, the publicity machine is already in full operation.
Renault now says it will return to endurance racing by competing in the famous 24-Hour race at Le Mans this year as well as running in the entire 2013 European Le Mans Series. Alpine raced 11 times at Le Mans between 1963 and 1978 with a total of 55 factory cars. The latest Alpine racing announcement comes after the entry of five A110 berlinettes for last January’s Rallye Monte-Carlo Historique.
In addition to Le Mans wins in the ‘Energy Index’ classification in 1964, 1965 and 1968, as well as in the ‘Performance Index’ classification in 1968 and 1969, Alpine had seven class wins in total. The pinnacle of the racing effort came with an outright victory in 1978 with the Alpine A442B prototype shared by Jean-Pierre Jaussaud and Didier Pironi. The two Frenchmen were joined in the top four palaces by the A442 of Jean Ragnotti and Guy Fréquelin.
For its return to Le Mans, Alpine has joined forces with Signatech. The Philippe Sinault-run team will enter an Alpine LMP2 prototype with an Alpine chassis powered by a 500 horsepower Nissan engine for the five rounds of the ELMS, including the opening race at Silverstone, England on 13 April. The drivers will be Nelson Panciatici and Pierre Ragues. Other than putting the Alpine name on the car for marketing reasons, little of the heritage of Alpine is evident.
The 2013 Le Mans entry list has 17 Nissan-NISMO-powered cars, the largest entry by a manufacturer in 15 years. The NISMO-tuned Nissan VK45DE V8 engine is now firmly established as the powerplant of choice for the majority of the LMP2 racing teams, which run generally run older versions of the fastest LMP1 cars. All cars will carry the designation “powered by Nissan NISMO.”
The highlight of the European endurance-racing season will be the Le Mans 24 Hours where a French team is bound to be a crowd favorite now that Peugeot has withdrawn from racing. The name of the third driver who will join the team for the world’s most famous endurance race will be announced when the car is officially presented at Le Castellet, France, on 24 March.
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