Alpine: 'Only natural' to rely on Alonso for future WEC effort

Alpine has yet to confirm its future involvement in the World Endurance Championship, but the manufacturer says it would only be natural to call upon Fernando Alonso to spearhead a potential effort in sportscar racing.

Alpine is expected to announce its entry into the Le Mans Hypercar or LMDh prototype category for 2023 and 2024.

Although Alonso is fully focused on Formula 1 and raring to compete in next year's championship which will be run to an entire new set of regulations, the 40-year-old Alpine charger – a two-time Le Mans winner with Toyota – would be an obvious choice for the Renault sub-brand according to Alpine boss Laurent Rossi.

"He is one of the biggest ambassadors of the Renault group in motorsports and it would only be natural for us to carry on beyond F1, god knows when beyond F1 means for him," said Rossi.

"If we do endurance [racing] in the future it would be ideal at some point to have him in the team."

Rossi made clear however that Alonso dovetailing F1 with a WEC program in the future would likely not be "feasible".

Assessing a potential onslaught in the WEC from 2023 or 2024, Rossi remained evasive about the class that Alpine would choose to enter alongside partner Signatech which runs its current transitional sportscar program with the grandfathered Alpine A480-Gibson LMP1.

• Read also: Alpine's Budkowski 'blown away' by Alonso race craft

"It could be LMH, it could be LMDh: I am looking at it with a very positive, keen eye," he said.

"I’m not going to go into too many details because there are elements to the decision and I don’t want to give too much away," he said.

"Between now and the end of the year we will form an opinion on all these things: if we carry on, in which category and in which timeline.

"We haven’t made a decision yet because we need a bit more time to look at all the parameters.

"That is basically the economic equation and the thought of what it takes for us to carry on to race in endurance, but with a chance of winning."

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