Alpine Endurance Crew trio Paul-Loup Chatin, Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi clinched victory within the 6 Hours of Fuji, the penultimate spherical of this 12 months’s FIA World Endurance Championship season and the sequence’ milestone a centesimal race
The #35 crew started the 6 Hours of Fuji from ninth on the 18-car Hypercar grid and initially dropped down the order after choosing up penalties for contact with the #8 Toyota GR010 of Sébastien Buemi and for a pit-stop infringement.
The trio gained an important break shortly after the race entered its second half, nevertheless, after they benefitted from the timing of a security automobile intervention prompted by a coming collectively between one of many Aston Martin Valkyries and the Coronary heart of Racing’s LMGT3 entry.
That elevated Milesi to second, with the Frenchman subsequently settling right into a three-way battle for the lead with the long-time-leading #93 Peugeot 9X8 of Mikkel Jensen and reigning world champion Kévin Estre within the #6 Porsche 963.
With an hour remaining, the French outfit elected to save lots of time by altering solely the left-hand facet tyres on the #35 automobile, whereas Peugeot and Porsche each changed the total set.
That promoted Milesi to the lead, and from then on, the Frenchman delivered a flawless efficiency to maintain his pursuers comfortably at bay and take the chequered flag 7.7 seconds away from Jensen, who needed to work exhausting to maintain the #6 Porsche, now with Laurens Vanthoor on the wheel, behind within the closing levels of the race.
The end result represented Alpine’s third total triumph in FIA WEC and its first victory for the reason that 2022 6 Hours of Monza, when Nicolas Lapierre, André Negrão and Matthieu Vaxivière got here out on prime.
Impressively, the #35 automobile is the one one within the 2025 Hypercar subject to not embrace a Platinum-ranked driver. It additionally implies that for the primary time within the championship’s historical past, 4 totally different producers have gained in succession, with Ferrari profitable the 24 Hours of Le Mans, adopted by Cadillac’s triumph at Interlagos, Porsche’s at COTA and now Alpine’s at Fuji.
Peugeot celebrated its finest end result within the sequence’ prime tier so far with the runner-up place. With the sister works Porsche ending fourth, Ferrari should wait till the season finale in Bahrain in its quest to clinch its maiden Hypercar World Endurance Producers’ crown, whereas no fewer than 4 crews stay in competition for the Drivers’ honours.
CORVETTE CLAIMS GLORY AFTER LATE DRAMA IN LMGT3For the second race in a row, VISTA AF Corse Ferrari 296 took the chequered flag first within the LMGT3 class, and for the second race in a row, one other crew stood atop the rostrum, as TF Sport’s #81 Corvette shared by Rui Andrade, Charlie Eastwood and Tom van Rompuy benefitted from a post-race penalty for the Ferrari (for the presence of personnel within the working space when the automobile was leaving) to inherit the win.
