Alpine today announced their FIA World Endurance Championship lineup for 2025, cutting a familiar face, adding a new one, and firming up another's future.
Let's quickly go through what's changed:
- Matthieu Vaxivière, who's driven for Alpine for quite some time, won't race for the French squad in 2025.
- Former Porsche factory driver Frédéric Makowiecki has joined Alpine, confirming a paddock rumour from Bahrain.
- Mick Schumacher has committed to Alpine for at least 2025, and has left his Mercedes F1 reserve driver role. More on this in a minute.
Let's examine these in a bit more detail, starting first with Schumacher.
'I want to get back to focusing 100% on racing'
These are words from Schumacher's statement on leaving his Mercedes-AMG F1 role. Here is the complete quote:
“I am grateful to Toto and the entire Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team for the insight I have gained over these two years. They have undoubtedly made me a more experienced racing driver because I have got to know the engineering side better.
But watching these cars race and not sitting in the cockpit myself is tough. I want to get back to focusing 100% on racing. I want to be fully committed to the sporting side of motorsport. Ultimately, it is racing that you want to do as a driver, it is racing that gives you that feeling you love.”
If we apply a sportscar slant to this, we can infer that Mick is committing, at least in the medium term, to his full-time race driver role for Alpine Endurance Team. Great!
Schumacher has been consistently fast compared to his Alpine teammates this year, as we can see from the graph below, where we've identified each driver's top 20% lap times and averaged them out, then ranked them 1-6 for each race, 1 being the fastest and 6 the slowest.
He was quickest out of the six race drivers at Losail (Qatar), Le Mans, and Interlagos this year, second quickest at Circuit of the Americas and Fuji, and third quickest at Imola.
And, if we calculate an overall average for the three Alpine drivers who competed in every race, Schumacher is on a 1:57.920, while Milesi is just a tenth behind on 1:58.920, and Vaxivière a further two tenths off on 1:58.219.
The team have, been all accounts, very happy with him. After the race at Imola, Alpine driver, and now sporting director Nicolas Lapierre, told Motorsport Week, 'In Imola, I have to say, [Schumacher] did a super strong race. He had a very strong pace, probably the strongest pace from the six Alpine drivers.'
Mick seemingly committing to sportscar racing means he won't have to split his focus between two entirely different projects next year, instead being able to devote his time, in a racing sense, fully to Alpine.
Of course, it's very possible his aim is still to get back onto the F1 grid for 2026. He's fully admitted in 2024 that his goal is to get back to F1, initially for 2025 but that may now shift to 2026. Indeed, with Cadillac's looming F1 entry, a seat there could be a key target for him.
The Racing Line will keep tabs on this going into 2025. But from the German's strong first year in endurance, it feels like he could forge a very good career in sportscars, with Alpine or another manufacturer.
Vaxivière in, Makowiecki out
Vaxivière's departure from Alpine is somewhat unexpected, although with the Makowiecki rumours something had to give from the driver line up. Lapierre announced his planned retirement before Bahrain, and Gounon was the clear and obvious replacement there.
Indeed, when The Racing Line asked him about his future at Bahrain, amid rumours of joining Alpine, Makowiecki wouldn't comment.
'I want to finish well here,' he said, indicating around at Porsche's team villa.
'I want to do it well here, finish this year and next year, probably from Monday on, it will be possible to to have a little bit more.
'But I would say, the main thing for me is to finish well with Porsche after 11 years. And after that, for the future is to try to find a place where my way of thinking and working - we have the same way with the people,' he concluded.
While Vaxivière may have flown somewhat under the radar in 2024, he compared very well to his teammates across the year. He was second quickest across the six race drivers at Losail, Imola, and Bahrain, plus third quickest at Spa and Interlagos.
Makowiecki's addition to the team will likely be a big boost though. He was instrumental in the development of the Porsche 963 a few years ago, and will likely have a lot of wisdom and knowledge to impart to Alpine.
Amongst the six full time Porsche Penske drivers, Makowiecki was the fastest at Interlagos, second fastest at Spa, and third fastest at Imola and Bahrain. Amongst such high-profile, world class talent such as Kevin Estre, Laurens Vanthoor or Matt Campbell, you can imagine Alpine will be very glad to have gained Makowiecki.
As to where Vaxivière will end up: there's still a few open seats at various teams, so we could still see the Frenchman on the grid in 2025.
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