Victor Martins are one of the new drivers in this years FIA World Endurance Championship.
The French driver is part of the Alpine Endurance Team #36, after being part of the Alpine development driver programme towards F1. But with no spaces in Formula 1, the young driver was moved towards the Hypercar programme, which needed a driver for this season.
Racing24-7.net caught up with him, after he had his first weekend in a very different paddock compared to the F1 and F2 paddocks.
How did you find the first weekend in endurance racing?
“I’m happy. In the end, I’m happy because I feel, I feel very comfortable in the car, every time out on track. It can be on outlap. It can be a proper push lap, like 100% also with some lift, I feel quite, quite comfortable. And I don’t feel I’m leaving on the table a lot of, lap time and performance. So I’m proud of that. It means that the preparation with the with the team during the winter, and the simulator, and during the prologue was good. After for sure. I’m still disappointed and frustrated with the penalty that we got, because it put us in the back foot. And wish we could have been able to fight for P7 or P6, with the pace we had, also with the sister car finishing P4, was a was a great result. But in the end, the pace was there. I think the car is working well, like we were expecting. So there are still a few things that we can do better. But if this will be the time to do during this three weeks before Spa.”
Photo: JJ Media
How did you feel the first time you jumped in the car?
“For sure, during the race, a bit of, not pressure, but you know, like in you have a bit of stress coming into the car, because you want everything to happen, like in the right way, and not having something wrong, when you go on track for the for the first time. So doing the first driver change during the race was quite a bit stressful. But in the end, we did well. Everything went like, well, like we were expecting. So after on track, I think, with what happened on track, I was already quite, quite prepared with the prologue, with FP, so yeah, not much to do better.
There’s a few more systems in these cars, compared to F2.
“For sure, there are a lot of things to watch out, to take care, to change, to tell to the engineer. There are a lot of calls from the engineer, to what to change on the system, on the car. So this, this is just an adaptation between taking care of the traffic, of my tires, where I’m on the track, changing this the things on the on the wheel, this is just an adaptation point, which I’m still learning, but I feel I’m quite happy about the level I am today.”
And you’re already used to advanced things from the f1 simulation,.
“Yeah, for sure, with the F1 experience that I’ve got in the past with Alpine, and then Williams helped me on this. I’m not starting from zero. I have already a few laps in an f1 car, where I have to change many things. But during a race is different.”
Victor Martins and the rest of the Alpine Endurance Team is back on track this week, where the second round of the FIA World Endurance Championship 2026 will run at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium.
