Lapierre: Alpine’s First Win With A424 Relieves “Pressure”

Alpine sporting director Nicolas Lapierre says the team’s first FIA World Endurance Championship win with its A424 LMDh at Fuji has come at a “good timing” for the French marque, admitting the “pressure” was building for the breakthrough result.

Sharing the No. 35 Alpine, Charles Milesi, Ferdinand Habsburg and Paul-Loup Chatin came out on top in an eventful 6 Hours of Fuji that was punctuated by multiple safety car periods, defeating Peugeot’s No. 93 crew in a straight fight.

The critical juncture for Alpine came at the final round of pit stops, where the team elected to give Milesi only two fresh left-side Michelin tires at his final stop, allowing him to get the jump on Mikkel Jensen, whose Peugeot 9X8 was given four new tires.

Milesi then managed a ten-second advantage to the finish to give Alpine a first outright WEC win since 2022 and its first since it rejoined the Hypercar class last year with the ORECA-based, Mecachrome-powered A424.

“It’s good timing for the team, for the project,” Lapierre told Sportscar365. “It was a very good strategic call in the end by the team and good pace on-track.

“Fuji was a good track for us last year, and we know the pace recently has been strong and the team operationally has moved forward, but there was always something in our way and we could not succeed to scoring results since Le Mans.

“When we arrived here we were confident, but the race didn’t start as we wanted; we had penalties and we were on the back foot again. But luckily we could strike back and get this first win.

“Clearly we had a good start to the season, so we were hoping to capitalize on this. We knew Le Mans would be difficult, but the two following races we had the pace but couldn’t score big points, so we could feel the pressure building up.

“It was important to secure a good result today, and getting a win is great.”

Lapierre said he was confident that Milesi would be able to manage the situation in the closing stages despite the disadvantage of having two fewer fresh tires.

He added that the fact Jensen had to defend from the No. 6 Porsche of Laurens Vanthoor in the final stages was also another factor in Milesi being able to maintain the lead.

“Honestly, our strategy was always to change two tires because we thought it was most efficient, but even more so when we were stuck behind the Peugeot, and then as the Porsche got in front of us, we had to do something different,” Lapierre said.

“The Porsche had a five-second penalty, but the Peugeot was on a similar strategy to us. The two tires were a good call. We had less warm-up time, and in the end we could open a gap that Charles could keep during the whole stint.

“The fact the two cars behind were fighting helped us as well to keep this gap open.”

Emotional Habsburg Says Victory “Means Everything”

During the post-event press conference, Habsburg paid tribute to Alpine and his co-drivers Milesi and Chatin, while also recalling his journey back from the injuries sustained in a testing crash that forced him to miss multiple races during the 2024 season.

The victory came after Habsburg earned a five-second stop-and-go penalty for contact with the Toyota of Sebastien Buemi at Turn 3 in the early stages, a collision for which the Austrian was adamant he was not to blame.

“It means everything,” said Habsburg. “It’s the coolest thing to win a race with two of your best friends in the paddock. Charles and Paul-Loup are some of the best drivers but also some of the best people I know. I can trust them with anything.

“They have motivated me so much through my own mistakes and moments where I was not doing so well, and it’s because of them we were able to win as a team.

“Philippe [Sinault, team principal] took a risk putting us together, because we are completely the wrong-size drivers to be sharing a car. Charles and I should never be in a car together [due to the difference in height], but Philippe trusted that our personalities could win together now matter how hard it was to make a seat work.

“For me it has been a long road from last year, breaking my back and missing some races, and struggling to get back up to speed, and this year, one situation after the next not going our way.

“When we had the penalty, it was so heart-breaking, but honestly, just being with these guys is worth it, and getting a win is something I’ve been dreaming of for a while.”