It seemed only right to congratulate Bruno Famin, Alpine’s vice-president of motorsport, on the marque’s first World Endurance Championship victory with its A424 LMDh. Your correspondent stuck out his hand on seeing him after the race at Fuji on Sunday, and quipped: “I didn’t see that one coming!” His reply? “Me neither.”
To say that victory for Charles Milesi, Paul-Loup Chatin and Ferdinand Habsburg in the Fuji 6 Hours was unexpected is an understatement. It didn’t look likely after they qualified down in ninth, nor after the first named of the drivers in the #35 entry ran into the back of Sebastien Buemi’s Toyota on lap 11 of the race.
The nose was damaged in the clash and needed changing and he also received a five-second stop-and-go penalty. Another penalty, this time a five-second stop and hold, was incurred later in the opening hour for a pitstop misdemeanour. On the two-hour mark, the eventual race-winning Alpine was down in 15th and barely on the lead lap.
Yet Fuji was no ordinary race; it was as chaotic as it was confused. No fewer than three safety cars, five Full Course Yellows and two Virtual Safety Cars punctuated proceedings around the 2.84-mile Fuji Speedway. The difference between an FCY and a VSC needs explaining because it was key to Alpine’s victory.
An FCY is meant to be a short sharp neutralisation, perhaps to deal with some debris or similar, where the cars run around at 80km/h. A VSC leads into a full safety car when a longer period of yellow-flag running is envisaged. The speed limit is the same, but there is a key difference. The pit entry shuts under FCY, but it remains open during a VSC to allow everyone to get in and out of the pits before they close for the initial laps of the safety car.
That’s how it’s planned, anyway, under new procedures introduced in the WEC for this season. But at Fuji the third safety car was preceded not by a VSC but by an FCY. Tom Gamble’s crashed Aston Martin Valkyrie Le Mans Hypercar was sitting by the Turn 3 barriers and needed moving. It looked like a job that could be undertaken under the FCY, but race control subsequently decided that a safety car was required. And the officials were quite within their rights to do so as per the sporting regulations of the series.
Tom Gamble’s crash was a turning point of the Fuji 6 Hours
Photo by: FIAWEC – DPPI
This decision went a long way to explaining why Alpine triumphed in Japan. As the FCY was called, Chatin was arriving in pitlane, the Frenchman getting across the entry line seconds before the pits were closed. The timing yielded a significant gain for the Alpine over the cars that pitted before and after.
Those that pitted in the couple of laps before the FCY lost more because the field was running around at racing speed. But everyone was trundling around at 80 clicks when Chatin handed over to Milesi and the fuel went in and the tyres on.
The issue for those that hadn’t pitted when the pits were closed under the FCY came with subsequent deployment of the safety car and protracted neutralisation of the race. They had no choice but to come in for a so-called emergency pitstop and take an eight-second splash of fuel before returning for their proper pitstop once the pits opened after three laps of safety car running.
Any number of manufacturer might have won the Fuji 6 Hours. It might have been the ultimate ‘could have, would have, should have’ motor race
Put simply the Alpine could not have been in the pits at a more opportune time. There was a massive slice of good fortune about it, but it would be wrong to say that Milesi, Chatin and Habsburg got lucky in the pits and waltzed on to victory.
Not only was there still hard work to do, but Alpine put itself in a position where it was able to gain strategically during a bizarre set of circumstances. Chatin had got bottled up behind the #009 Aston Martin Valkyrie LMH with Alex Riberas at the wheel during the fourth hour and was instructed to go into fuel save mode.
No one at the Signatech-run Alpine team could have predicted what was to come, but the extra lap it gave the A424 out on track turned the race in its favour.
Alpine pitting at the right time was key to victory
Photo by: James Moy Photography via Getty Images
But Milesi still had to deliver in the closing stages of the race. He didn’t emerge in the lead after the final safety car, rather in second position. Leading was Mikkel Jensen in the #93 Peugeot 9X8 2024 LMH he shared with Paul di Resta and Jean-Eric Vergne. Nor was the Alpine even second when the cars ducked into the pits for the final time with an hour remaining: he’d lost out to a flying Kevin Estre in the #6 Penske Porsche 963 LMDh.
But now Alpine rolled the dice and opted to change only two tyres, while Peugeot and Porsche opted to go for four fresh Michelins. Suddenly the Alpine was in the lead.
The big question was whether he could maintain an advantage that stood at approximately eight seconds once the stops were completed. The answer to that question was a resounding yes: he was even able to extend his lead, edging it out to as much as 11s before crossing the line 7.7s to the good.
Milesi admitted post-race that the “last few laps seemed endless”, but he reckoned he was in good shape to repulse any kind of challenge from the chasing Peugeot and Porsche had it come. “I still had some potential to push a bit,” he explained. He reckoned that building his advantage during the first couple of laps out of pits when he had the benefit of two tyres at operating temperature was crucial in looking after his Michelins: “When you have a 10 or 11s gap, you can manage the risk in traffic and you are not on the edge and locking up.”
Any number of manufacturer might have won the Fuji 6 Hours. It might have been the ultimate ‘could have, would have, should have’ motor race. “It was a race where a lot of people could say, ‘if, if, if’,” reckoned Laurens Vanthoor, Estre’s team-mate in the #6 Porsche.
That applied to Estre and Vanthoor more than anyone else at Fuji. A victory for a car that had ended up at the back of the Hypercar pack in qualifying after Estre locked up on his second hot lap looked more than an outside bet for much of the second half of the race.
It was a case of ‘what if’ for Porsche
Photo by: Andreas Beil
Vanthoor was able to haul the car up to seventh in the space of the opening hour, only to get hit up the rear by Rene Rast’s BMW at the end of the first FCY. Even with the time lost changing the rear bodywork, it still might have won.
The same goes for the extra pitstop it made during that final and fateful safety car. The Porsche was one of the cars that had to stop again after taking an emergency splash, yet Estre had the pace to haul the car back up to second ahead of Milesi during hour five.
But the nail in the coffin of Porsche’s hopes of following up on its Fuji victory 12 months before came with a penalty for a pitstop infringement. It was announced just as Estre made that pass on Milesi, but the infraction had occurred just two hours before when a mechanic started working on the car before the engine was switched off.
“We got partially lucky, they got fully lucky. We could have won, that’s for sure. We didn’t have the fastest car, but we somehow finished P2″ Olivier Jansonnie
The five-second hold that Vanthoor had to take after getting back in for the run to the flag proved decisive. It meant he came out behind Jensen, and that’s where he pretty much stayed for the remainder of the race, even if he did once get his nose in front through the twiddly final sector without making the pass stick.
The straightline speed advantage of the Peugeot was always going to make it difficult to pass. But given Estre’s pace before the stops, there’s every reason to believe that Vanthoor would – on four new tyres, remember – had something for the Alpine up front had he began his stint ahead of the Peugeot.
Peugeot might, too, have won, rather than having to settle for second, still its best WEC result so far – the French marque’s previous three podiums have all been third places. The #93 car was in the mix pretty much the whole way in Japan and wasn’t a big loser during the third safety car – the yellows came out while it was already stationary in the pits. “We got partially lucky, they got fully lucky,” suggested Peugeot Sport technical director Olivier Jansonnie, the “they” referring to Alpine.
Although Peugeot was frustrated to not win, it was still its best result of the year
Photo by: Jakob Ebrey / LAT Images via Getty Images
“We could have won, that’s for sure,” continued Jansonnie, who suggested that there wasn’t too much disappointment in the Peugeot camp. “We didn’t have the fastest car, but we somehow finished P2.”
The fastest car at the end of the race was the third-placed Porsche, which Jensen managed to hold off courtesy of a steadfast rearguard action for a full hour. The fastest car at the beginning was the Cadillac V-Series.R LMDh. The pair of Caddys run by Jota had blocked out the front row in qualifying for the third time this year and raced away into a clear lead, Will Stevens in the #12 Alex Lynn had put on the pole outpacing Sebastien Bourdais in #38.
Their advantage was wiped out by the first safety car as the end of the first hour approached. Stevens managed to rebuild a more slender advantage from the di Resta in the #93 Peugeot, while Bourdais with two tyres used in qualifying on the left struggled. It all went wrong #12 at this stage, and it is difficult to explain why the car in which Norman Nato joined Stevens and Lynn ended up down in sixth, seven places ahead of #38 driven by Bourdais, Jenson Button and Earl Bamber.
The team put it down to bad luck with the yellows, whatever type they were. “Today it didn’t go our way, not for mistakes or anything,” reckoned Nato. “No penalties and in terms of strategy we didn’t do anything wrong. We just got unlucky today.”
Alpine enjoyed luck and exploited that good fortune when required to take victory in the 100th WEC race. There is a final irony to its triumph, however. Twelve months ago, it took its maiden podium with the A424 on a day that it was more competitive than last weekend. That just shows what a strange race the 2025 Fuji 6 Hours was.
Ferrari, which had a disappointing weekend, still leads both championships heading into the Bahrain finale
Photo by: James Moy Photography via Getty Images
Read the full article here