Alpine continues to prepare for the World Endurance Championship and has conducted regular tests of the A424 hypercar, which took place at Spain’s Motorland Aragon circuit.
These were the fourth tests of the LMH/LMDh class sports prototype, mainly testing the reliability of the new equipment. The Aragon circuit was chosen because it has a long straight, similar to that of the Sarthe circuit at Le Mans, on which the car can reach top speeds.
The works team of the French concern Renault expected to cover 5,400 km in a 30-hour session, but the distance had to be reduced to 5,027 km. If during the first eight hours of work on the highway there were no special problems, apart from a puncture, interruptions in the operation of the turbine began, oil and coolant leaks were discovered, as well as a malfunction in the electrical installation. system.
In addition to the task of assessing reliability, the team also continued to search for settings, analyzing the performance of Michelin tires in cold weather conditions and practicing various procedures, including the actions of mechanics during pit stops, etc.
At the same time, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, in the wind tunnel of the Windshear Research Center in North Carolina, the first stage of the process of official homologation of the hypercar took place, allowing the A424 to reach the start line. of the American IMSA Championship.
“The team is genuinely happy that we were able to cover such a distance in the first endurance tests,” said Bruno Famen, Vice President of Alpine Motorsport. – The main purpose of the session was to check reliability and identify weaknesses. We have found several and now we are going to deal with them, and we have to act quickly because there are still 100 days to go until the start of the season in Qatar.
Time flies and we have a huge amount of work to do to improve the car’s reliability, but more needs to be done in terms of increasing speed. We will now analyze the information collected and try to make the best of it in preparation for the tests in Portimão, scheduled for mid-December.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
