Jules Gounon is set to graduate from his role as Alpine’s official World Endurance Championship reserve to take a race seat at Bahrain in November for a second consecutive weekend, Autosport has learned.
The move is part of the same plan, put in place at the beginning of the season, that resulted in Gounon replacing Paul-Loup Chatin in the #35 Alpine A424 LMDh for last weekend’s Fuji round.
This time it calls for the Mercedes-AMG factory driver to take the place of Charles Milesi, Alpine’s star performer at this month’s Austin and Fuji WEC races, in the #35 Hypercar class entry run by the factory Signatech team.
Alpine has so far yet to officially confirm Gounon’s role for the Bahrain 8 Hours on 2 November.
The 29-year-old Frenchman, who subbed for the injured Ferdinand Habsburg in #35 at the Imola and Spa WEC rounds in April and May respectively, appears to be in contention for a race seat at the Signatech Alpine squad next year.
Speculation to that effect was fuelled by his promotion to the race line-up at Fuji, which was devised to give him “the opportunity to continue his Hypercar learning process”, according to Alpine.
The Renault brand’s motorsport boss, Bruno Famin, wouldn’t confirm that changes in the Alpine WEC line-up are under consideration for 2025. He repeated the phrase “one thing after the other” when asked.
Gounon, whose father Jean-Marc finished second at the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1997 driving a GTC McLaren F1 GTR, has never made any secret of his aspirations to compete at the highest level of sportscar racing.
He described going for victory in the WEC and at the Le Mans 24 Hours as “my biggest goal and my biggest dream”.
But he said he preferred to talk about Fuji when questioned in Japan last weekend about a possible full-time future with Alpine.
He confirmed that he remained under contract to Mercedes as part of its GT3 roster for one more year in 2025, but insisted that this would not necessarily prevent him for racing for Alpine in the full WEC alongside his commitments with the German manufacturer.
“It could be a possibility,” he said.
Gounon revealed on the announcement of his deal with Alpine in February that he had travelled to the home of Mercedes-AMG head of customer racing Stefan Wendl “to beg him to let me do this adventure with Alpine”.
He also revealed at that time that there had been discussions about a full-time ride in the WEC with Alpine for 2024.
“Mercedes has been fantastic for me over the past three years and it wouldn’t have been fair to go against them,” he said.
There is still uncertainty over Mick Schumacher’s place at Alpine for next year.
The former Haas Formula 1 driver, who has dovetailed his role as Mercedes’s test and reserve with racing for Alpine in the WEC this year, has repeatedly refused to commit to remaining in the series in 2025.
He is still insisting that a return to a full-time race seat in F1 remains his priority even though there are now only two berths vacant.
“I am still looking at F1,” he said. “My plans for next year are pretty open: nothing is confirmed, nothing is done.”
