Gounon in for injured Habsburg at Alpine for Imola

Alpine has confirmed that its FIA WEC Hypercar reserve driver Jules Gounon will make his debut for the team at this weekend’s six-hour race at Imola, standing in for the injured Ferdinand Habsburg.

Habsburg, who suffered two fractured lumbar vertebrae in a testing crash last month at Aragon, will sit out the race while he continues his recovery. The Austrian also missed the ELMS season opener at Barcelona last weekend, where he was due to compete with COOL Racing in the series' hotly-contested LMP2 class.

In his place, Gounon, an IMSA GTD Pro race winner with WeatherTech Racing, will share the No. 35 A424 with Charles Milesi and Paul-Loup Chatin for what will be his top-class prototype debut.

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The Frenchman, who is known best for his role as a Mercedes-AMG factory driver in GT racing, was originally named on the entry list for this weekend's World Challenge Asia event in Sepang. Instead, this late call-up means he will compete in Italy, with Ralf Aron replacing him in the No. 22 Climax Racing AMG GT3 in Malaysia.

“Ferdinand will be on our minds,” said Philippe Sinault, Alpine Endurance team principal. “It is a hard blow, but that is part of the life of a team, and everything is in place to ensure that he is with us thanks to modern communication methods.

“We’ve decided to replace him with Jules at Imola. It’s never easy to make your debut in such a context, but Jules was identified, selected and signed to fill this role, even though we never imagined it would happen so early like this.

“He’s fundamentally ready but still has much to learn, even if he has already demonstrated his mastery of several aspects, given his track record in GT. We honed his preparation during our latest tests with his six teammates and then in the simulator to prepare him for all our processes.

“This weekend promises to be extraordinarily instructive for the whole team.”

The 6 Hours of Imola is set to be the second race globally for the A424, after the season-opener in Qatar.