After covering more than 1,850 kilometres in Tuesday's Prologue, Alpine Endurance Team returned to the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari on Friday for its first race weekend of the 2026 season.
With a further 235 laps completed and the fastest time in FP2 for the #35 Alpine A424, the team fine-tined its preparations ahead of qualifying. Serious and focused, Charles Milesi made it through to Hyperpole and secured seventh place on the grid. His team-mate Jules Gounon missed out on the top ten by just 0.038s in a session where the top 15 was covered by less than one second.
On Sunday, Ferdinand Habsburg (#35) and Frédéric Makowiecki (#36) started the race shod with Michelin's soft compound tyres. On the attack from the word go, the Austrian immediately gained a position on the #7 Toyota before overtooking the #94 Peugeot. Further back, Frédéric Makowiecki was locked in an intense battle for a points-scoring position.
Both drivers kept pushing as they put in a double-stint. The team used the first virtual safety car period to adjust the #35 Alpine A424's strategy. This quick thinking later propelled Ferdinand Habsburg before he handed over to António Félix da Costa, whose drive consolidated the crew’s position in the lead group. Meanwhile, Frédéric Makowiecki handed over to Victor Martins. On his Endurance debut, the Frenchman impressed, setting the provisional fastest lap of the race, but a drive-through penalty for breaching the virtual safety car protocol saw the #36 car drop down the order.
Under threatening skies, Charles Milesi (#35) and Jules Gounon (#36) got behind the wheel of the Alpine A424s with one hour and forty minutes left. Seventh and fifteenth when they took to the track, the French duo pressed on as conditions grew treacherous. Charles Milesi stepped up the pace, overtaking the #83 Ferrari and #15 BMW in quick succession, whilst Jules Gounon simultaneously made several moves on a track where overtaking opportunities are few and far between.
At the end of this intense and closely contested race, the #35 Alpine A424 took the chequered flag in fourth place, whilst the sister car finished eleventh, adding another point to the team’s tally. With this first race confirming the strong foundations of the 2026-spec Alpine A424, Alpine Endurance Team will head to Belgium next month for the TotalEnergies 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps (7–9 May). The second round of the calendar will also serve as the final dry run ahead of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
In addition to the on-track action, this weekend was marked by a flurry of activity centred on the A-arrow brand. Amidst a record crowd of 92,175 spectators, several guests and partners discovered the iconic Imola circuit in the Alpine A110 and Alpine A390. Meanwhile, Martin Solveig, Andrea Kimi Antonelli and numerous other personalities also came to meet the team and experience the passionate atmosphere of Emilia-Romagna.
QUOTES
#35 crew
António Félix da Costa
“I’m happy with our performance in such a demanding race with a lot of neutralisations. Making the right calls on strategy wasn’t easy, but the team did well, and we got the most out of our car this weekend. Ferdinand and Charles drove an amazing race. We can be happy with this fourth-place finish to start our season. Thank you to the whole team for welcoming me. We can now look forwards to Spa and the real preparations for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.”
Charles Milesi
“It was a good race. We lost a bit of time changing all four tyres during the first virtual safety car, but we still managed to optimise our performance. The top three were a cut above the rest today, and this result is probably the best we could have achieved. We can be satisfied with the work done this winter, and we know where we still need to improve. Spa will be an important step in coming back even stronger and continuing our preparations for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.”
Ferdinand Habsburg
“Congratulations to the team as this result marks our best start to a season since the programme's inception. Everyone gave it their all, and we can be proud of how we approached the race, our level of performance, and the spirit we showed. I really enjoyed working with my new engineers and new teammates while continuing to get to know the car, especially in traffic, where the feeling is different from last year. There were some great battles, and I want to congratulate António and Charles, who did an incredible job to turn a seventh-place grid position into a fourth-place finish in such a competitive championship.”
#36 crew
Frédéric Makowiecki
“We showed some encouraging potential at times. Our pace was clearly strong in clear air. However, we struggled more in traffic, and that’s a key area we need to work on moving forward. This race has provided us with valuable insight, especially since the next race is just around the corner. We’ll now focus on Spa-Francorchamps, a key race to harness all our potential and the final dry run before the 24 Hours of Le Mans.”
Jules Gounon
“It was a really tough race for us, and finishing outside the top ten is naturally disappointing. We ran into a few minor issues that slowed us down, on top of a penalty. That said, we had the pace, and our sister car’s fourth-place finish shows it. We’re going to debrief the race and look what we can improve to come back stronger at Spa.”
Victor Martins
“It was a positive weekend overall. I learned a lot, especially about aspects of endurance racing that were completely new to me. Race traffic is very different from practice traffic, and that was definitely one of the key factors today. Our pace was competitive and I felt like I was doing a good job. The goal is to build on this weekend, keep moving in the right direction, optimise every detail, and avoid mistakes to put it all together. Spa will be another opportunity to score points. I’m also delighted with the performance of the sister car. They did an excellent job, and it shows that the whole team is working in the right direction and providing us with a competitive car.”
Management
Nicolas Lapierre, Sporting Director Alpine Endurance Team
“It’s an encouraging start to the season, with a promising fourth-place finish for our new package in its debut race. All our drivers showed good pace, but we made a few small mistakes that may have cost us an even better result. That’s all part of the learning process, though. The key thing is that we have a solid foundation and have clearly identified the areas we need to improve as soon as possible.”
Philippe Sinault, Team Principal Alpine Endurance Team
“It’s an encouraging start to the season. From the moment we arrived at Imola, the car felt well-balanced, and we made the most of every practice session to prepare for the race. We chose an aggressive approach, focusing almost exclusively on the soft tyres to understand their performance over time, while anticipating potentially cooler, more unpredictable conditions. It paid off. Ferdinand made an excellent start, placing the #35 in the right group; António also did a very good job in his first race with the team; and Charles managed to navigate a conservative tyre and energy strategy to secure fourth place. As for the #36, feelings are more mixed. We made too many mistakes by not pitting during the first safety car period, and then with a penalty during the virtual safety car period. However, the pace was very close to that of the sister car, which is promising for the future. We still have a lot to learn, but we have a strong base, and we can already see our improvement compared to last year.”
Axel Plasse, VP Alpine Tech
“This is a satisfying start to the season, as the goal was to confirm that the winter development work has paid off, which it clearly has. After qualifying seventh, finishing fourth on pure pace confirms our potential. The key takeaway is that we can regularly operate in the upper third of the field if we maximise our package and avoid strategic and operational mistakes. Beyond the result, I spent the whole weekend with the team and felt a very positive dynamic, with strong cohesion, chemistry, and a mindset defined by both support and high standards. There are still a few details to refine, but I am pleased with the impact of the organisational changes made over the winter and with the solid foundation we now have for the rest of the season.”
CLASSIFICATIONS
6 Hours of Imola
- Toyota Gazoo Racing #8
- Alpine Elf Endurance Team #35
- Alpine Elf Endurance Team #36
Hypercar World Endurance Drivers Championship
- Buemi / Hartley / Hirakawa – 25 points
- Da Costa / Habsburg / Milesi – 12 points
- Gounon / Makowiecki / Martins – 0 point
FIA Hypercar World Endurance Manufacturer’s Championship
- Toyota – 40 points
- Alpine – 13 points
