Le Mans - Alpine focuses on tire performance

The Alpine A470 will have to confirm their potential to 24 Hours of Le Mans after a mixed start to the season at Silverstone (Great Britain) and Spa-Francorchamps (Belgium). Signatech will focus on the performance of Dunlop tires over long runs, a sector in which Philippe Sinault's team still needs to make progress, during the Test Day on Sunday June 4.

“After the first two races of the season, we learned lessons about our strengths and the areas on which we need to improve, comments the Team Principal of Signatech-Alpine. We know that we perform well on a lap, in qualifying and in the race. However, we need to understand the use of tires even better. »

“At Le Mans, the constraints are enormous and we will have to manage the restricted quota compared to 2016. We will focus most of our efforts on this aspect, to find the best compromise between performance, endurance and safety”, specifies Philippe Sinault.

Signatech-Alpine will hardly be able to do better than in 2016 when it won the LMP2 victory and the title in WEC. The French team will trust Nelson Panciatici, Pierre Ragues and André negrao on No. 35, while Romain Dumas (replacing Nicolas lapierre), Gustavo Menezes and Matt Rao will be present on the No. 36. André Negrao will be the only driver on the team to complete at least 10 laps as a rookie at Le Mans.

“We are approaching this 85th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans with a form of excitement, specific to major events, adds Bernard Ollivier, the deputy general director ofAlpine. It's the most important race of the year, and not just because it earns double the points in the WEC standings. Alpine returns to Sarthe with ambition and an irrepressible desire to demonstrate his worth. We want to live up to our achievements from last year! »