Alpine announces new team-mates for Schumacher in WEC 2025

Mick Schumacher will likely be joined by Frederic Makowiecki and Jules Gounon in Alpine’s World Endurance Championship line-up for 2025. 

It means the ex-System 1 racer could have two new full-season team-mates within the #36 Alpine A424 LMDh for his second 12 months of sportscar racing. 

In 2024 he was joined by Nicolas Lapierre and Matthieu Vaxiviere, who at the moment are respectively sporting director and, it was revealed on the announcement of Alpine’s driver combos on Wednesday, reserve for the Signatech-run Hypercar class squad. 

Schumacher was confirmed by Alpine for 2025 at the end of November last year, having beforehand refused to commit his future whereas F1 seats remained open.

Makowiecki has moved over to Alpine from Porsche, with which he raced in Hypercar within the 2023-24 WEC, after deciding that he wanted a “new problem”.

Gounon is graduating to a full-time race seat after endeavor 4 of the eight races final 12 months in his function as reserve. 

The common line-up of Charles Milesi, Ferdinand Habsburg and Paul-Loup Chatin in #35 is unchanged from Alpine’s first season with the A424 in 2024. 

Signatech boss Philippe Sinault defined that stability was one of many targets when placing collectively the 2025 driver line-up with Alpine motorsport boss Bruno Famin and Lapierre.

“We felt it was essential to construct on the sturdy foundations we had laid,” he defined. “Charles, Ferdinand, Mick and Paul-Loup have made large contributions to organising the venture, displaying actual dedication.”

On Gounon, he stated: “We knew that his GT expertise would carry rather a lot to our Hypercar venture from a technical standpoint. 

“That was the case, so we had been eager to advertise him to the race staff to construct on what we got down to do a 12 months in the past.”

Sinault added that Makowiecki, who was the primary driver to drive the Porsche 963 on each the simulator and the race monitor, is bringing “huge expertise” to the Alpine programme.

Lapierre stated that the French driver’s “technical background is precisely what we want at this section of the venture”.

Alpine’s A424 scored its first WEC podium on the Fuji spherical in September with Schumacher, Lapierre and Vaxiviere driving.

The sister automotive pushed by Gounon, Habsburg and Chatin then completed fourth within the Bahrain season finale, which cemented Alpine’s fourth place within the producers’ standings.