Habsburg withdraws from the 6H of Imola, Gounon called by Alpine

Change of driver at Alpine for the 6 Hours of Imola. The A fléché must call on its reserve driver, Jules Gounon, for the second round of the 2024 season of WEC. The French driver will make his prototype competition debut, replacing Ferdinand Habsburg, injured his back during a practice session conducted by Alpine at Motorland Aragon.

Jules Gounon will therefore support Charles Milesi and Paul-Loup Chatin in Imola, aboard theAlpine A424 n°35 for a 100% French trio. The Ardéchois knows the Italian circuit well having driven there in GT World Challenge Europe, with a podium obtained in 2022. Called at short notice by the French team for the WEC, the driver Mercedes in GT was released by the Star brand, he who was to participate in GT World Challenge Asia with the Climax Racing team in Malaysia.

Gounon « ready on the fundamentals » valued Alpine

“Ferdinand will be in our minds, confides Philippe Sinault, Team Principal Alpine Endurance Team. It's a hard blow, but it's part of the life of a team and everything is in place for him to be among us thanks to modern means of communication. We made the decision to replace him with Jules at Imola. It's never easy to make your debut in such a context, but Jules was identified, selected and chosen to play this role even if we didn't imagine it would happen so soon.

“We believe he is ready for the fundamentals, but there is still a lot for him to learn even if he has already proven to have mastery in many areas given his career in GThe adds. We refined his preparation during our last tests with his six teammates, then in the simulator to prepare him for all of our processes. This weekend promises to be extremely educational for the entire team. »

For the rest, no change. Alpine can draw on the experiences of Mick Schumacher and Paul-Loup Chatin, respectively victorious in F4 and LMPC at Imola, and that of Nicolas lapierre, already on the podium in both GP2 and LMP2 in Emilia-Romagna. After the first points obtained by the A arrow in Qatar, the French clan hopes to capitalize and continue to progress.

“Qatar certainly went well and we got off to a good start, but our objective at the 6 Hours of Imola is to continue our learning to be more and more ready and gain momentum for the next events., explains Philippe Sinault. We will discover a circuit profile very different from what we have experienced since the first runs of the A424. On this atypical playing field, our experience will be relative as the cars and the environment have evolved since our last race at Imola. Traffic will be a very important parameter, but we also know that the curbs are quite aggressive and that they will have an influence on the settings in order to negotiate them well and take full advantage of them.

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