The Portuguese driver sets the fastest time in his first public appearance as an Alpine factory driver – Fire at Lexus causes lengthy interruption
Antonio Felix da Costa topped the timesheets at the World Endurance Championship (WEC) rookie test in Bahrain. The former Porsche driver, who will be racing for Alpine next year, set a best time of 1:49.214 minutes in the Alpine A424 36 in the afternoon.
This put him 0.159 seconds ahead of current Alpine regular driver Frederic Makowiecki, who completed a few installation laps in the morning before handing the car over to da Costa.
Newcomer Nick Cassidy, who will compete for Peugeot in 2025, completed a total of 59 laps in the two 9X8s and finished third with a time of 1:49.376 minutes. The New Zealander was thus the fastest “real” rookie of the test, while da Costa had already competed in a Hypercar season with the Jota Porsche in 2023. Marco Sörensen finished fourth in the Aston Martin Valkyrie 51, continuing her gradual acclimatization to the Hypercar class after previously completing test drives for Toyota and Ferrari.
Right behind her was the newly crowned world champion James Calado in the same car, followed by Charles Weerts, who made a strong debut in the BMW 8 Toyota completed the top 10.
As several regular drivers also took part in the test, several newcomers lined up further down the field.
Mattia Drudi finished 13th in the Aston Martin. Kelvin van der Linde finished 16th in his first outing in the BMW M Hybrid V8. In the LMGT3 class, Hadrien David took the lead in the 87 ASP Lexus, which he shared with David.
Nicola Lacorte finished fourth in the 77 Proton Ford with a time of 2:02.717 minutes.
The second red flag of the day was caused by Matias Zagazeta in the afternoon when he had to park his AF Corse Ferrari 21 on the track.
