Jules Gounon is starting in the 24H Spa this weekend in the Max Verstappen-branded Mercedes entry, alongside Dani Juncadella and Chris Lulham. He told Motorsport Week exclusively ahead of the Belgian endurance about how to balance three high-profile factory efforts at the same time.
Besides GT World Challenge, which the 24-hour Belgian race falls under, Gounon competes in the full season of DTM with Mercedes in GT3 and Alpine in Hypercar.
“I think for me this year it’s been quite difficult because we were very close to success in all the different programs, and every time something was going on that stripped up either victory,” Gounon says, after a very tough 24H of Nurburgring, where he, together with Max Verstappen and other teammates, was forced to retire from the lead due to a technical issue.
“It was just very difficult to accept. I had the chance to do all those programmes, and if you start winning, it makes you less tired because you have the winning adrenaline, but to be honest, I didn’t have it this year yet, so it’s been difficult.”
At the 24 Hours of Le Mans earlier this month, the Alpine team, which Gounon is a part of in the World Endurance Championship, proved to be competitive throughout the race. Once again, technical difficulties stripped Gounon of having a shot at a podium at the French endurance classic.
“I have such a chance to be on cars to try to win races in those three programmes, which is a dream scenario for any endurance driver. To be able to do DTM, WEG and GT World Challenge and Nürburgring 24h program, plus the Bathurst 12h race, Daytona race, all the cool races. This year, my program has been amazing.
“It definitely does not have the success that I wanted to, but we are only halfway through the season and in motorsport, people always remember how good you were the last weekend, so every weekend you’ve got new chances, and we can start this weekend.”
No weekends off
It has been a very busy few weeks for the Frenchman, balancing three very competitive programmes has resulted in no motorsport-free weekends since before the start of WEC in Imola in April: “Yeah, I think I’m on my 11th weekend back to back, which is a lot. It’s not only racing, you have a lot of testing sometimes during the week we had the 24 hours prologue, but I also had some tests with the Alpine, I had some sim with Alpine, I had some tests with DTM, I had some tests a lot everywhere, so you definitely feel.
“But when people ask me how I do it, when it’s your passion, it never feels like you are working, but I said to my mom the other day, I say, ‘if you don’t like your job with the travel I have and so on, you definitely cannot do it.’”
In terms of physical and mental impact, it’s definitely the mental impact that Gounon finds harder: “For me, the physical training is always easier because you just go on the bike, you go to the gym, you run whatever, and this is easy.
“What you can never really prepare for is the mental tiredness that you get when you race so many weekends in a row with high pressure and trying to perform every single weekend, so this is the difficult part, and I think with the experience you get a bit better at it, but yeah, it’s not easy.”
Another major aspect of Gounon’s 2026 racing programme is the fact that he keeps changing between two different types of cars every few weekends. The Mercedes GT3 and Alpine Hypercar are very different cars and getting used to their differences was an area of struggle: “The first year I was struggling a bit especially going to the Hypercar, because carbon brakes, downforce, everything that I’ve never been used to, but now what makes me quite happy is that I can come from Le Mans to a DTM race weekend, and in my first run I was P2 in free practice in the GT straight awa.
“And for me it’s kind of weird because when I drive the hypercar I feel I’m fully in the hypercar when I drive the GT I feel I’m fully in the GT like I’ve never had my brain really got a switch like when I start to sit in the MG or when I sit in the Alpine I really feel my brain already switches and I never get like I feel at home in both cars.”
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