Alpine to return to Le Mans

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A teaser picture of the Nissan-powered 2013 Alpine LMP2 chassis. The car will be shown in public for the first time during a shakedown run at Le Chatelet in 24 March.

We already know that Renault and Caterham are working together to revive the Alpine name, and that the recently-created Société des Automobiles Alpine Caterham is already working on a new car which is expected to reach the market in 2016.

And they've begun building up some race-track cred as well; after all, Jean Rédélé started Alpine as a small-scale constructor of racing cars based on Renault mechanicals, much as Carlo Abarth did with Fiat.

After the appearance of the Alpine A110-50, released to mark the 50th anniversary of the celebrated 'Berlinette' at the 2012 Monaco Grand Prix and at the Le Mans Classic week, five of them were entered for the recent Rallye Monte-Carlo Historique, and were then put on display with other Alpine models at the Rétromobile Show in Paris at the beginning of February.

RIGHT UP TO DATE

That's all very retro and nostalgic - but today (8 March) Alpine stepped squarely into the 21st century with the announcement that it would be competing in the 2013 European Le Mans Series endurance racing championship, as well as the Le Mans 24 Hours on 22/23 June.

Alpine competed at Le Mans 11 times between 1963 and 1978, running a total of 55 factory cars, culminating in an outright win in 1978 for Jean-Pierre Jaussaud and Didier Pironi in the A442B, in addition to seven class wins, the Performance Index in 1968 and 1969 and the Energy Index in 1964, 1965 and 1968..

For its return to endurance racing, Alpine will enter an LMP2 prototype chassis with a 370kW Nissan engine for the five rounds of the ELMS, including the opening race at Silverstone, England on 13 April.

The regular drivers will be Pierre Ragues and Nelson Panciatici, with a third, as yet unnamed driver for Le Mans.