Lapierre: Alpine “Ready to Fight” in World Title Showdown

Alpine driver Nicolas Lapierre says the French team is “ready to fight” for the FIA World Endurance Championship title in Bahrain where it will go up against Toyota Gazoo Racing.

Lapierre, Andre Negrao and Matthieu Vaxiviere sit level on points with the No. 8 Toyota crew of Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa heading into Saturday’s eight-hour season finale.

The match-up involves cars from two different types of regulation that the WEC has worked to balance throughout the season.

The Alpine A480 Gibson is an LMP1 car that has been grandfathered for two years beyond the formula’s endpoint, while the Toyota GR010 Hybrid is built to the newer LMH ruleset.

Former Toyota driver Lapierre doesn’t feel that Alpine is the favorite heading into the Bahrain decider, considering the circuit leans towards the strengths of the more powerful but heavier LMH cars.

However, the Frenchman told Sportscar365 that the Signatech-run outfit is “well prepared” for its attempt to beat Toyota which has won the last three drivers’ titles.

“It’s great for us and the championship,” said Lapierre. “We are super excited.

“It’s a world championship, so the title would be something very special. We are ready to fight for this and well prepared.

“For sure it’s not going to be the best track for us. At Fuji, we were a bit slower than them.

“We are for sure not the favorites, but anything can happen. In an eight-hour race, we have to be there and be ready to get any opportunity.

“Considering the amount of straight-line [speed] we are not coming in as the favorite.”

Alpine has received a 4 kilowatt power increase in the pre-event Balance of Performance for Bahrain, which came after a 29-kW reduction ahead of the last round at Fuji.

Its chance to win the title comes after a difficult debut season with the A480 Gibson last year, which Lapierre described at the time as “very frustrating.”

However, he feels significant steps have been made during the latest campaign: “It’s been great to see the team getting more mature and working at a much higher level.

“This year we had a very strong year in terms of strategy. It was great to see from the inside. This year is the best we’ve ever had and we are happy to be in this position.

“We had a season without any mistakes, and we had some very strong races like Spa and Sebring. We were not so good at Le Mans, but we still scored points.

“Even if we are not coming in as favorites it’s great to be in this position. At one race, anything can happen. So we are ready to take any opportunity.”

Alpine will hope that its 8 Hours of Bahrain challenge lasts longer this weekend than it did last year, when Lapierre led for around 15 minutes before the car encountered gearshift issues that prompted an actuator change.

Buemi Prefers Fighting Alpine to Sister Car

The two Toyota crews were in title contention heading into last season’s final round, although Buemi – who finished second in the 2021 standings – prefers the current scenario of competing against a different team.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans winner also expressed hope for a fair contest between Toyota and Alpine in Bahrain.

“We need to finish ahead of them so we’ll do everything we can to execute the race well,” Buemi told Sportscar365.

“I somehow feel a bit better than fighting the sister car down to the last race. Obviously that would have meant that Toyota would have won anyway, which is not the case now, but it’s nicer to not fight the sister car.

“I just hope the FIA did a good job with the BoP and I just hope that everyone will play fair and nothing will come out like sandbagging.

“If you look at them, they sometimes had some very different kind of performance, looking like they were really far [away] and all of a sudden in quali, they are very close or even ahead. I trust the process, so we’ll see.”

John Dagys contributed to this report