Alpine has unveiled the car it will race alongside Toyota and Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus in the inaugural Hypercar class of the World Endurance Championship. Dubbed the A480, the racer is virtually identical to the Rebellion R-13 that competed in last year’s LMP1 category. While the Hypercar class was initially formed solely for hypercars that would spawn production models, it has since been opened up to racing prototypes that will compete in the LMDh class. All vehicles will need to comply with a Balance of Performance system.
Powering the Alpine A480 is a 4.5-liter V8
from Gibson Technology while the car is underpinned by an Oreca chassis. Alpine
will enter just a single car in the championship with drivers Nicolas Lapierre,
André Negrão, and Matthieu Vaxivière.
Alpine chief executive Laurent Rossi added
that “the evolutions of the regulations offer us the opportunity to express our
passion [and] to demonstrate our technical know-how and our experience in a
fair and cost-effective framework.” While this year’s Hypercar class will be
limited to Toyota, Alpine, and Scuderia Cameron Glicknehaus, the likes of
Ferrari, Peugeot, and ByKolles Racing are also developing their own hypercars
for subsequent seasons, while Porsche and Audi will also enter the series with
LMDh class racers.
