Signatech, currently competing as the Alpine Endurance Team, is a French

auto racing Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition. In North America, the term is commonly used to describe all forms of automobile sport including non ...

team and racing car constructor that competes in the

FIA World Endurance Championship The FIA World Endurance Championship, abbreviated as WEC, is a world championship for automobile endurance racing organized by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) and sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The se ...

. Signatech has been a long-term partner for Alpine since 2013, and has been responsible for running their

Le Mans Prototype A Le Mans Prototype (LMP) is a type of sports prototype race car used in various races and championships, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans, FIA World Endurance Championship, IMSA SportsCar Championship, European Le Mans Series, and Asian Le M ...

race cars in the WEC, most notably in the

LMP2 A Le Mans Prototype (LMP) is a type of sports prototype race car used in various races and championships, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans, FIA World Endurance Championship, IMSA SportsCar Championship, European Le Mans Series, and Asian Le M ...

class and more recently stepping up to the

Le Mans Hypercar A Le Mans Hypercar (LMH) is a type of sports prototype race car that competes alongside LMDh entries in the Hypercar class of the FIA World Endurance Championship. It also competes in the Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class of the IMSA SportsC ...

class with Alpine's A424 sports prototype. Alpine purchased a stake in Signatech in 2024.

Racing history

The team won the FIA European Formula Three Cup in 1999 with

Benoît Tréluyer Benoît Jean-Marie Tréluyer (; born 7 December 1976) is a French professional racing driver. Early career Beginning his motorsport career in motocross and karting, Alençon-born Tréluyer switched to single-seaters in Formula Renault Campus for ...

. It won the

French Formula Three Championship The French Formula Three Championship was a motor racing series for Formula Three cars held in France between 1964 and 2002. The series was merged with the German Formula Three Championship in 2003 to form the Formula 3 Euro Series The Formula 3 ...

in 2000 with Jonathan Cochet as driver, who also won the European Cup and

Masters of Formula 3 The Masters of Formula 3 was a Formula Three race held annually, usually at the Circuit Park Zandvoort in the Netherlands. Due to noise restrictions in the Zandvoort area, the 2007 and 2008 races were held in the Belgian circuit of Circuit Zolder, ...

that year, and won the Korea Super Prix for the team in 2001. In 2002, Renaud Derlot won the European F3 Cup for the team. In 2003, Signature won the team championship in the first Formula Renault V6 Eurocup, with

Tristan Gommendy Tristan Emmanuel Benoît Gommendy (born 4 January 1979) is a French professional racing driver who last competed in the European Le Mans Series with Duqueine Team. Racing career Early career Born in Le Chesnay, Yvelines, Gommendy began his prof ...

and

Kosuke Matsuura is a Japanese race car driver currently competing in the Super GT series. He previously competed in the Formula Nippon and IRL IndyCar Series. Early career After winning the Japanese Formula Dream Championship in 2001, Kosuke attracted the at ...

as drivers. They moved from the defunct French F3 series to its replacement, the

Formula 3 Euro Series The Formula 3 Euro Series was a European-based junior single seater formula for Formula Three chassis that was launched (in its current form) in 2003 as a merger of the French Formula Three Championship and German Formula Three Championship. The ...

, and

Nicolas Lapierre Nicolas Camile Bernard Lapierre (born 2 April 1984) is a retired French professional racing driver and team principal. Notable for winning the LMP2 class four times at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Lapierre was a factory driver at Toyota during the ea ...

and Fabio Carbone completed a 1–2 finish for the team at the prestigious

Macau Grand Prix The Macau Grand Prix (; ) is an annual motorsport road racing event for automobiles and motorcycles held on the Guia Circuit in Macau. The event includes the Formula Regional and Motorcycle Grand Prix title races, with other races for Touri ...

Edoardo Mortara Edoardo Alberto Gérard "Edo" Mortara (born 12 January 1987) is a Swiss-Italian- French professional racing driver currently competing in Formula E for Mahindra Racing and in the IMSA SportsCar Championship for Automobili Lamborghini Squadra ...

and Jean-Karl Vernay repeated this feat in 2009. The team began competing in the 2009

European Le Mans Series The European Le Mans Series (abbreviated as ELMS) is a European sports car racing endurance series inspired by the 24 Hours of Le Mans race and organized by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO). The European Le Mans Series is similar to the fo ...

in the LMP1 category. The 2010 season was an outstanding one for Signature in the F3 Euroseries with Edoardo Mortara and Marco Wittmann finishing first and second in the series, winning eight races between them, and also taking the team championship. Signatech provided the chassis for the

Formula Future Fiat Formula Future Fiat was an open wheel racing series founded in 2010 by Felipe Massa and his family. It was based in Brazil. The champion received support to compete in Formula Abarth. The category was founded in 2010 by Felipe Massa and his fami ...

, a junior formula racing series in Brazil held in 2010 and 2011. Le Mans 2011 Signatech Nissan

In 2011, in cooperation with the

Nissan is a Japanese multinational Automotive industry, automobile manufacturer headquartered in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan. The company sells its vehicles under the ''Nissan'' and ''Infiniti'' brands, and formerly the ''Datsun'' brand, with in-house ...

GT Academy, Signatech finished second in LMP2 at the

24 Hours of Le Mans The 24 Hours of Le Mans () is an endurance-focused Sports car racing, sports car race held annually near the city of Le Mans, France. It is widely considered to be one of the world's most prestigious races, and is one of the races—along with ...

. In 2012, Signature decided to pull out of the Formula 3 Euro Series, to concentrate on its involvement in sport car races. The team finished tenth overall at the

2012 24 Hours of Le Mans 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

using a

-powered

Oreca 03 The Oreca 03 is a Le Mans Prototype built by Oreca in 2011. It is built within the revised 2011 ACO regulations for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The car made its début at the 12 Hours of Sebring run by Signatech Nissan and set to race at the 201 ...

. In 2013, Alpine partnered with Signatech to run an LMP2 car in the European Le Mans Series with French drivers

Pierre Ragues Pierre René Gilbert Ragues (born 10 January 1984 in Caen) is a French racing driver, who competes in the FIA World Endurance Championship. Career Karting Debuting in karting in 1994, Ragues was second in the Monaco Kart Cup in Formula A in 20 ...

and

Nelson Panciatici Nelson Hugo Douchan Panciatici (born 26 September 1988) is a French professional racing driver. Career Karting Born in Reims, Panciatici started his karting career in 1998 and continued until 2004.Formula 4 Sudamericana In science, a formula is a concise way of expressing information symbolically, as in a mathematical formula or a ''chemical formula''. The informal use of the term ''formula'' in science refers to the general construct of a relationship betwe ...

. In 2015, Signatech, continuing its partnership with Alpine, returned to the

, winning the championship LMP2 category in

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

and 2018–19. In 2020, Signatech returned to the European Le Mans Series under the name of Richard Mille Racing Team. The team previously planned to run an all-female lineup of Tatiana Calderón,

Katherine Legge Katherine Anne Legge ( ; born 12 July 1980) is a British professional auto racing driver who competes part-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, NASCAR Xfinity Series, IndyCar Series, IMSA SportsCar Championship. She holds the record for the fastest qu ...

and

Sophia Flörsch Sophia Flörsch (; born 1 December 2000) is a Germans, German racing driver who last competed in 2025 Indy NXT, Indy NXT with HMD Motorsports. She has previously raced in FIA Formula 3 Championship, Formula 3, Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, DTM, t ...

, however, due to Legge's injury, she was then replaced by

André Negrão André Negrão (born ) is a Brazilian racing driver. He most recently drove for Alpine in the Hypercar class of the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2023, and spent a total of seven seasons with the team during his tenure. Negrão is a for ...

for the first two rounds.

Beitske Visser Beitske Visser (born 10 March 1995) is a Dutch people, Dutch Auto racing#Racing driver, racing driver. She has raced in kart, single-seater, GT and prototype series. Career Karting Born in Dronten, Visser began karting in 2007 and raced in va ...

would then take over Legge's place for the rest of the season. The team would then join the LMP2 class of the 2021 FIA World Endurance Championship, with an all-female lineup of Tatiana Calderón, Beitske Visser and Sophia Flörsch. In 2021, the team partnered again with Alpine, this time fielding a "grandfathered" Rebellion R13 in the Le Mans Hypercar class for the 2021 FIA World Endurance Championship season, which finished third overall at the

2021 24 Hours of Le Mans The 89th 24 Hours of Le Mans (French: ''89e 24 Heures du Mans'') was a 24-hour Endurance racing (motorsport), automobile endurance race for teams of three drivers each entering Le Mans Prototype (LMP) and LM GTE, Le Mans Grand Tourin ...

. The team continued with this lineup in 2022. For 2023, Signatech returned to the LMP2 category with two

Oreca 07 The Oreca 07 is a Le Mans Prototype built by French manufacturer Oreca to meet the 2017 FIA and ACO LMP2 regulations. It made its official race debut in the opening round of the 2017 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, the 24 Hours of Dayt ...

s; They returned to the top class of the World Endurance Championship in 2024 with two Alpine A424s.The French manufacturer managed a fourth place in the standings, with the highlight being a third-place finish in the 6 Hours of Fuji.

Racing record

24 Hours of Le Mans results

Timeline

References

External links

* } {{DEFAULTSORT:Signature Team French auto racing teams French racecar constructors Auto racing teams established in 1990 1990 establishments in France Formula 3 Euro Series teams FIA World Endurance Championship teams 24 Hours of Le Mans teams European Le Mans Series teams FIA Formula 3 European Championship teams French Formula 3 teams British Formula Three teams Renault in motorsport