WEC: Alpine claims first win of the season in Fuji thriller

Alpine Endurance Team trio Paul-Loup Chatin, Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi clinched victory in the 6 Hours of Fuji, the penultimate round of this year’s FIA World Endurance Championship season and the series’ milestone 100th race

The #35 crew began the 6 Hours of Fuji from ninth on the 18-car Hypercar grid and initially dropped down the order after picking up penalties for contact with the #8 Toyota GR010 of Sébastien Buemi and for a pit-stop infringement.

The trio gained a crucial break shortly after the race entered its second half, however, when they benefitted from the timing of a safety car intervention prompted by a coming together between one of the Aston Martin Valkyries and the Heart of Racing’s LMGT3 entry.

That elevated Milesi to second, with the Frenchman subsequently settling into a three-way fight for the lead with the long-time-leading #93 Peugeot 9X8 of Mikkel Jensen and reigning world champion Kévin Estre in the #6 Porsche 963.

With an hour remaining, the French outfit elected to save time by changing only the left-hand side tyres on the #35 car, whereas Peugeot and Porsche both replaced the full set.

That promoted Milesi to the lead, and from then on, the Frenchman delivered a flawless performance to keep his pursuers comfortably at bay and take the chequered flag 7.7 seconds clear of Jensen, who had to work hard to keep the #6 Porsche, now with Laurens Vanthoor at the wheel, behind in the closing stages of the race.

The result represented Alpine’s third overall triumph in FIA WEC and its first victory since the 2022 6 Hours of Monza, when Nicolas Lapierre, André Negrão and Matthieu Vaxivière came out on top.

Impressively, the #35 car is the only one in the 2025 Hypercar field not to include a Platinum-ranked driver. It also means that for the first time in the championship’s history, four different manufacturers have won in succession, with Ferrari winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans, followed by Cadillac’s triumph at Interlagos, Porsche’s at COTA and now Alpine’s at Fuji.

Peugeot celebrated its best result in the series’ top tier to date with the runner-up position. With the sister works Porsche finishing fourth, Ferrari must wait until the season finale in Bahrain in its quest to clinch its maiden Hypercar World Endurance Manufacturers’ crown, while no fewer than four crews remain in contention 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 in the LMGT3 class, and for the second race in a row, another crew stood atop the podium, 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 in the working area when the car was leaving) to inherit the win.