Welcome to the Alpine A480 drivers’ office
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Ever dreamed of climbing behind the wheel of a Le Mans prototype? Alpine Elf Endurance Team’s Nicolas Lapierre talks us through his workspace inside the Alpine A480 he is driving in this year’s FIA World Endurance Championship. Believe us, it’s no place for claustrophobics, or fans of uncluttered automotive design!
BY RENAULT GROUP
Even if you managed to give Alpine’s guards the slip and sneak inside one of the team’s A480s, you wouldn’t get very far in it. The cockpit’s complexity is effectively comparable to that of an airliner, with an array of buttons, lights and switches on and around the steering wheel, the purpose of which would elude the vast majority of wannabe drivers.

<p>LAPIERRE Nicolas (fra), Alpine Elf Team, Alpine A480 – Gibson, portrait during the 2022 FIA WEC pre-season private test on the circuit Paul Ricard from February 15 to 11, in Le Castellet, France – Photo Gregory Lenormand / DPPI</p>
The cockpit is a little like our office. We spend several hours inside it every race weekend
Permanently connected
The steering wheel is equipped with numerous push-button and rotary switches which the drivers employ lap after lap, but there are other ways they get to interact with their car. To the right of the steering wheel, for example, is a panel with more than 20 coloured buttons. “These are the controls we use less frequently,” notes Nicolas Lapierre, “to activate a fan, for example, or adjust the screen’s brightness. That sort of detail can be critical in certain situations, such as driving at dusk.”
Spartan comfort
Hit as many switches as you like, but you’ll never get the aircon to work, and that’s because the car doesn’t have one! To cater for that, the drivers have access to a big drinks bottle in the heat of the action. “It is connected to our helmet by a small tube. We sometimes spend more than three hours in the car at a time and it can get pretty hot inside the cramped cockpit, so you need to stay hydrated. Because there’s little air and no aircon, your drink gets warm quite quickly but it’s still nice to be able to take a sip every now and again!” The switch to activate the flow is depicted by a beer glass!