While Mick Schumacher has left the WEC and Alpine for IndyCar, Ferdinand Habsburg will remain on board with the French factory team for a third year.
Alpine’s driver lineup for the 2026 World Endurance Championship (WEC) season is taking shape. After the French factory team presented Antonio Felix da Costa as its first new signing in October last year, it was announced at the beginning of this week that Victor Martins will also become a regular driver in the two-car team in 2026.
Frederic Makowiecki’s continued presence in the team has been confirmed for some time. And now it is also clear that Ferdinand Habsburg will remain with Alpine as well. The 28-year-old Austrian has signed for a third year. Meanwhile, Mick Schumacher left the Alpine team and the WEC in the winter to compete full-time in the IndyCar series in 2026. Habsburg has been under contract with Alpine since 2024. His greatest success to date was winning the 6 Hours of Fuji in Japan in September 2025 alongside Paul-Loup Chatin and Charles Milesi. “I love racing with Alpine,” says Habsburg. “And now that I know what it feels like to win with Alpine, the anticipation is even greater. I can’t wait for it to finally start again in Qatar.”
Habsburg is now looking ahead to the first of eight races on the 2026 WEC calendar, the 1,812 kilometers of Qatar at the Lusail International Circuit. A few days before the race date (March 28), the official WEC pre-season test, known as the Prologue, will also take place on this same track.
This is scheduled for March 22 and 23 in the teams’ calendar. Alpine team boss Philippe Sinault commented on the contract extension with Ferdinand Habsburg, saying: “Ferdinand is the perfect embodiment of an endurance driver—the kind of driver you dream of having on your team and as a teammate.
He has real racing intelligence. He instinctively understands situations, whether at the start of a race or in the middle of the night at Le Mans. And he knows how to adapt his driving style accordingly.“
”He is also an exceptional team player who always puts the interests of the team first, with a unifying attitude and an incredibly infectious smile,” Sinault continued. The Alpine team boss is convinced that Habsburg “will be one of our greatest strengths for the new season, and that’s why I’m proud and delighted to be able to count on him in his third season with the team.”
With Antonio Felix da Costa, Ferdinand Habsburg, Frederic Makowiecki, and Victor Martins, four of the six Alpine regular drivers for the 2026 WEC season have now been confirmed. Alpine will announce who the other two will be and how they will be divided between the two A424 LMDh cars at the team presentation on February 18.
